Preamble

The House met at half-past

Two o'clock

Preamble

PRAYERS

[Mr. Speaker in the Chair]

PRIVATE BUSINESS

EASTBOURNE HARBOUR BILL [Lords]

Salvation Army Bill [Lords]

As amended, considered; to be read the Third time.

ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS

Mr. Speaker: I have been asking Ministers to answer one supplementary question only, and hon. Members to ask one supplementary question only when they are called.

ENERGY

Coal Industry

1. Mr. Hardy: 1. Mr. Hardy asked the Secretary of State for Energy what action is being taken to increase production of coal in

the United Kingdom in the light of the Venice agreement.

Mr. Gwilym Roberts: asked the Secretary of State for Energy if he has any plans further to increase capital investment in the coal industry.

Mr Edwin Wainwright: asked the Secretary of State for Energy what effect the recent Venice summit agreement to double coal production by 1990 will have on the future of the British coal mining industry; and if he will make a statement.

The Secretary of State for Energy (Mr. David Howell): The Government's strategy for coal, as embodied in the Coal Industry Bill now before the House, provides for record levels of capital investment in coal and will give the National Coal Board opportunities to expand production provided that the extra coal can be sold at a competitive price. That strategy, which is a continuation of measures adopted by successive Administrations of both parties, is in entire accord with the declaration of the Venice summit.

Mr. Hardy: Will the Secretary of State confirm that the Venice summit commitment was not restricted to the North American continent? Even at this late stage, will he consider the inflexible time scale contained in the Coal Industry Bill to ensure that the coal industry


can maintain research into the use of coal and mining technology, as well as maintain investment in new and existing collieries?

Mr. Howell: On the last point, the coal industry's commitment to research is well up. We wish to see that continue because of the diverse and exciting future for coal and coal products. The Venice summit target was for all seven countries taken together. The reality is that Britain is streets ahead of most of the other seven, both in coal use and in the proportion of coal in total electricity generation. The pressure from the Venice summit communique was intended for the other countries, to bring them up to the British standards of coal production and coal use. There is no doubt that the greater scope for production increase will be in the United States. If that is achieved, the general effect, combined with our plans for the industry, will be to increase coal production over the coming years to about double the present levels.

Mr. Roberts: Does the Minister accept that there is real disappointment in the coalfields about the Government's response to the Venice agreement? Does he agree that, if we are to reach the coal production targets that have been discussed, there is need for an even greater drive in our coalfields and a speeding up of development in areas such as those in my constituency, where developments have been proposed? Is he aware that there is a growing fear for the first time in that coalfield about what the future will bring?

Mr. Howell: I know that there is a problem with the Park colliery in the hon. Gentleman's constituency. The Department of the Environment is considering the matter, especially the chlorine content of coal. In general, I do not agree with the hon. Gentleman that there is disappointment in the coalfields. It is recognised that massive investment is going into the coal industry and that the potential for the future is great, provided that we stick to present trends of higher productivity, lower absenteeism, better output per man-shift and, above all, competitive pricing for our coal.

Mr. Wainwright: Does the Minister agree that Governments may come and go but the coal mining industry will continue for a long time? Does

he realise that the financial restriction placed upon the industry will neither benefit its long-term prospects nor create a viable industry? Will he bear in mind the fact that it is better for the Government to look for more co-operation and less confrontation with the trade union movement to ensure that the industry grows and becomes competitive with other nations?

Mr. Howell: Much depends on the meaning of the word "restriction". When I think of the external financing limit on the coal industry this year of more than £ 800 million, the £ 500 million in operational grants over the next three years, the £ 600 million a year, at 1979 prices, investment in the industry and the fact that social grants will continue after 1983-84, I find it difficult to square that with the concept of restriction.

Mr. John H. Osborn: Is my right hon. Friend aware that coal could be a source of employment for South Yorkshire? He referred to the sale of coal at competitive prices. Is he aware that utilities in the Community—a possible export market—are shopping around for the cheapest coal available from insecure economic sources? What discussions has he had on an agreed price for coal for the future?

Mr. Howell: I am not sure about all the innuendoes in my hon. Friend's question. If he is talking about the expansion of coal trade and the coal needs, say, of West Germany, I can tell him that the Bonn Government recently decided on a 15-year plan for a vast increase in long-term coal contracts from wherever they can obtain the coal. There is no doubt that they will seek coal from wherever it is competitively priced. I would be proud, as would the coal industry, if Britain were able to compete in those markets in the future.

Mr. Eadie: Will the right hon. Gentleman for a moment drop his party dogma and think about the interests of energy provision for the nation? Is he aware that he cannot expect his answers to be accepted by the House when he persists in legislating to extinguish grants to the NCB in 1983-84? Is he aware that such persistence means pit closures and a consequent reduction in coal production? Does he accept that that is not the basis on which the Venice communique was


signed? Why do the Government pursue a doctrinaire policy that will lead to restriction in production?

Mr. Howell: The hon. Gentleman has it wrong. He is experienced in the coal industry and its administration. He is on record as saying that it would be better if the coal industry could continue in profitability without operating grants. That is our aim over the next three years. The hon. Gentleman is mistaken in believing that we are imposing a straitjacket. There is plenty of provision for grants in the £ 500 million of which I have spoken. There is plenty of provision for new investment. I do not see this as a straitjacket. I recognise that the hon. Gentleman has the interests of the coal industry at heart, but in this case he is wrong.

Several Hon.: Several Hon. Members rose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. I shall call one more hon. Member from each side.

Mr. Adley: Will my right hon. Friend confirm that productivity has gone up since the Chancellor of the Exchequer reduced direct taxes in the last Budget? If that is so, should we not encourage that pattern?

Mr. Howell: I confirm that productivity in the coal industry is rising. I hope that it continues to do so.

Mr. Albert Roberts: Is the Minister aware that in the near future we shall require production of 200 million tonnes a year? If we are to achieve that target, will not a terrific amount of good will be required in the industry? What steps is he taking to ensure that the good will that exists is maintained and increased?

Mr. Howell: I am not sure about the hon. Gentleman's precise target figures. We need an expansion of coal production at competitive prices. I believe that we can achieve that. Good will in the industry, high productivity and big investment in existing faces and for opening up new pits are required. I believe that we can do no better for our coal industry than to ensure that it has the investment, the new equipment and mining machinery to provide the coal for tomorrow under better conditions than have obtained in the industry in the past.

Several Hon. Members: Several Hon. Members rose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. This matter comes up again shortly.

Electricity Supply Industry

Mr. Stoddart: asked the Secretary of State for Energy whether he plans to bring forward legislation concerning the reorganisation of the electricity supply industry.

Mr. David Howell: I refer the hon. Member to the reply that I gave on Monday 14 July.

Mr. Stoddart: Yes, I noticed that reply and the fact that the right hon. Gentleman seems to agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, South-East (Mr. Benn) about the need to retain area boards and area board chairmen. Does the right hon. Gentleman's announcement mean the end of the concept of power boards and that he has ended his search for private capital in the electricity supply industry?

Mr. Howell: About 17 per cent. of electricity is already generated by private means in the industry. My announcement on 14 July confirms that we believe that substantial improvements in the structure of electricity supply can be achieved within the existing statutory framework.

Mr. Viggers: Is my right hon. Friend aware that there is no popular demand for reorganisation of the electricity supply industry? Does he agree that the best idea is to let sleeping Plowdens lie?

Mr. Howell: I appreciate what my hon. Friend says. There is no need for an enormous centralising upheaval in the industry. That would be the wrong course. There is need for improvement, but I believe that it can be achieved within the existing statutory framework.

Mr. Ashton: Is the Minister aware that generally the last Labour Government supported the proposals in the Plow-den report? Is he aware that the reasons included the anomalies in pricing policy, installation of meters and disconnections? Is he aware that to the consumer it seems that the area boards have different policies? For instance, is he aware that in London five times more disconnections take place than in the rest of the country? Will he try to introduce a


national standard policy, because the present system is distressing to poor people?

Mr. Howell: There are some anomalies and some variety. I am not sure that variety is necessarily bad. To compare the LEB with other areas with different problems is a little misleading. The hon. Gentleman reminds us that the previous Labour Government supported the centralising proposals in the Plowden report. We believe that they are out of date and that there is nothing for the consumer in such centralisation. I am not surprised that the last Labour Government took that view, but we take a different view.

Mr. Rost: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the price of electricity is higher in Britain than in some competitor countries and that it is rising faster than in countries such as France and Germany which have major nuclear programmes? How will my right hon. Friend ensure that there is greater efficiency and competition in the industry so that we can retain our competitive position?

Mr. Howell: Efficiency and competive-ness in the industry are important goals. That is one of the reasons why the present operations of the CEGB have been referred to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission under the new Competition Act—which was not possible before. Reference has been made to comparative prices, particularly for heavy energy-using industries. There is a danger in making snapshot comparisons when all over Europe contract prices are being revised upwards. We keep a close watch on this. I share my hon. Friend's concern to ensure that we have a highly efficient and competitive industry drawing on efficiently priced fuels and with efficient operations so that it gives good service to the customer.

Mr. Arthur Lewis: On the question asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw (Mr. Ashton), is the Minister aware that in some areas there are many immigrants who cannot read or write English and who receive no notice that their electricity supplies are to be cut off? Will he ask the boards to notify the local social security department before they cut off a supply? If

he does not do that, is he aware that many old people might die in winter through lack of heat? Will he ask the boards to notify the social security departments before they take action?

Mr. Howell: As the hon. Gentleman knows, because he has taken a close interest in the matter, the code of practice has been reviewed. I take note of what he said. I shall see whether the provisions can be improved so that the problems he described are minimised.

Fuel Prices

Mr. Hal Miller: 3. Mr. Hal Miller asked the Secretary of State for Energy to what extent fuel prices are subsidised in the European Economic Community; and what representations he has made to the Council of Ministers on the matter.

The Under-Secretary of State for Energy (Mr. Norman Lament): The principle of economic pricing of energy was endorsed by all member States in the Energy Council of Ministers on 13 May. I do not have full details of the extent to which fuel prices may be subsidised in other member States. We are, however, continuing to stress on all occasions the importance of implementing this principle.

Mr. Miller: In the light of the information that I have given to the Department about the extent of the subsidy for gas and coking coal, is my hon. Friend aware of the foundry and forging industries' view that either there must be an end to the subsidies, which in some cases amount to 100 per cent., or that there must be some control over the import of products of those industries?

Mr. Lamont: I understand that my hon. Friend has written to my hon. Friend at the Department about coking coal imports and will be receiving a reply. It is largely a matter of other countries being more competitive and not a question of subsidies.

Mr. Hardy: Will the Minister confirm that his Department has plenty of information to prove that our energy pricing policy is markedly disadvantageous to British industry? Will he accept that, although we are achieving self-sufficiency, we are also achieving idiocy?

Mr. Lamont: I do not accept that. Energy costs are a small proportion of the total cost of most industries—usually about 1 or 2 per cent. We are watching carefully the trend in gas and electricity prices in this country and in the EEC to ensure that British industry is not at a disadvantage.

Mr. Skeet: Is my hon. Friend aware that tomato growers in Holland receive a considerable subsidy for their gas? Will he make representations to see either that that is discontinued or that United Kingdom growers receive a subsidy?

Mr. Lamont: My right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food has been making representations at the Council of Ministers, and the Commission has been preparing a report on the problem. Proposals are to be put to the Council of Ministers tomorrow.

Mr. Ashton: What is the Minister's answer to the Chemical Industries Association, which has strongly protested to him that our gas is 7p to 17p per therm dearer than elsewhere and that Belgium and Italy particularly have heavily subsidised gas? Is he aware that our chemical industries on Merseyside and in Manchester, where there is high unemployment, are suffering the most? Has he no comfort to offer them?

Mr. Lamont: I am meeting representatives of the chemical industry again this week. Average contract prices for gas in the first quarter of this year were 16p per therm, which may not be apparent from some tables that have been published. Renewals and new contracts are running at a higher rate than the average price for the first quarter of this year, but that is also true in other European countries. The hon. Gentleman may have noticed that the Algerian negotiations with France for LNG, which are before transport and storage costs, are opening at 26p per therm, as is the Norwegian-German Gel-senberg deal.

Mr. Speaker: Order. [Hon. Members: "Good answer."] It may be a good answer, but it is much too long.

Conservation

Mr. Watson: asked the Secretary of State for Energy whether he is satisfied with his Department's activities to encourage conservation.

Mr. Hannam: asked the Secretary of State for Energy whether he is satisfied with progress being made in the United Kingdom on energy conservation.

The Under-Secretary of State for Energy (Mr. John Moore): I am satisfied that our energy conservation policy is effective. As part of this policy, and after completing the statutory consultation procedure, I have today laid an order before the House reducing the maximum heating limit in non-domestic buildings to 19 degs. centigrade. This order will come into effect on 1 October, and I estimate that the energy savings resulting from this reduction could be about 1 million tonnes of oil equivalent a year.

Mr. Watson: I am extremely grateful to my hon. Friend for that answer and for the conservation measures that the Government have taken over the past year, but what attempt is the Department of Energy making to assess the cost effectiveness of conservation measures as against investment in additional generating capacity?

Mr. Moore: My hon. Friend will be aware, through his membership of the Select Committee on energy, that it has addressed that important question to the Department, and work is being undertaken on that at present.

Mr. Hannam: As one who was in danger of overheating in Government offices last winter, will my hon. Friend accept that I welcome that reduction in the maximum heating limit? The overall objective is to reduce oil consumption. What are the latest figures on the consumption of petroleum and motor spirit, which in previous months showed signs of increase over last year's figures?

Mr. Moore: On the latest figures available for the three months from March to May 1980, United Kingdom petroleum usage was down 14-8 per cent. Motor spirit increased in usage by over 6 per cent. for the first quarter. Happily, for the past three months it is up by only 0-3 per cent., which is almost no increase.

Mr. Palmer: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that I had a most unsatisfactory answer from the Department of Energy


about the energy saving in absolute and percentage terms in each Government Department? Will he accept that the Department refused to give me the figures and that I was given only an overall figure of 3 per cent.? Is that lack of information fair to the House?

Mr. Moore: The answer came from me, and I trust that I would not give an unsatisfactory answer to any hon. Member. The figures were based on usage by the Property Services Agency, which controls most energy usage in the Government sector, and the Ministry of Defence. I felt that my answer gave the information that was requested.

Mr. Jessel: Does my hon. Friend accept that double glazing to protect people from loss of heat also shuts out aircraft noise and, therefore, brings a double benefit? Can he, therefore, see what can be done, in co-operation with his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Trade?

Mr. Moore: The House will be aware of my hon. Friend's long and dedicated service to his constituents in regard to aircraft noise. There have been great advances in double glazing, particularly through the promotion of the double glazing industry in the past few years, which will have helped my hon. Friend's constituents in their tribulations.

Mr. Hooley: Is the Minister aware that it is universally recognised that investment in fuel efficiency is of far greater economic value than investment in new capacity? Why, therefore, are the Government proceeding with a lunatic programme of £ 25 billion investment in nuclear power stations?

Mr. Moore: Moderation in all things is desirable. There are arguments on the demand side and on the supply side. As for demand, we are addressing ourselves to the basic way in which fuel efficiency can be obtained through the intelligent use of the price mechanism.

Mr. Freud: In view of precedent and the need for Members of Parliament to be an example to the nation, would it not be a good idea for the House of Commons to aim for 5 per cent. less than the maximum heating limit? Will the Minister announce whether that should be fahrenheit or centigrade?

Mr. Moore: I shall draw that remark to the attention of my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for the Environment, who is responsible for the operation of the heating limits in the House. I am sure that we should all like to see less steam generated in the Palace of Westminster.

Coal Industry

Mr. Adley: askedthe Secretary of State for Energy when he intends to meet the National Union of Mineworkers to discuss the future of the coal industry.

Mr. John Moore: My right hon. Friend and I met the executive committee of the National Union of Mineworkers on 27 June for a comprehensive discussion of the Coal Industry Bill, which embodies the Government's strategy for the development of the coal industry. We agreed that a further meeting could be held if it should be necessary.

Mr. Adley: Investment means jobs, and in the light of the technological advances in converting coal to oil will my hon. Friend discuss with the National Union of Mineworkers its attitude to the possibility of oil companies investing in coal mining, as appears to happen in other countries, and even perhaps taking on pits that the NCB has to close?

Mr. Moore: We should first make our coal industry profitable, which is the basis of our coal strategy. A total of £ 800 million is being invested in the coal industry this year. When we have a profitable industry, the NCB and NUM may welcome private investment, and private investors may welcome the opportunity to invest in the coal industry.

Mr. Allen McKay: When the Minister discussed the future of the industry with the NCB, did he discuss the tonnage requirements per annum up to the year 2000? Will he assure us that he will not stand by and see pits closed for economic reasons rather than because the coal is exhausted?

Mr. Moore: Targetry was not specifically raised, but there is constant debate on the matter. Decisions on pit closures are for the NCB in consultation with the mining unions, and that will continue to be the practice.

Sir Anthony Meyer: Since coal has to compete with other sources of fuel and cannot for ever be sheltered from competition, should not the National Union of Mineworkers, whatever its bargaining strength, reflect that exorbitant demands could in the end lead to scarcity of jobs in the industry?

Mr. Moore: Pay is an issue for the National Coal Board. I endorse entirely what my hon. Friend has said. The expansion of our coal industry throughout the rest of the century should be in areas where it can compete with other fuels. It is in the interests of the miners and of Britain that the coal industry is able to meet its competitors head on in price and other competitive terms.

Mr. Skinner: Is it not true that more pits were closed in Britain when miners, relative to their pay today, occupied the lowest place in the pay league? Does the hon. Gentleman accept that the argument about miners pricing themselves out of the market therefore does not hold? Will he confirm that the subsidy in Western Germany is about £ 12 a tonne, in France £ 24 a tonne and in Britain £ 1 a tonne? If that angle is considered and if we increase the amount of coal that we use, we shall help to stop the dole queue spiralling upwards towards 2 million.

Mr. Moore: Unlike the hon. Gentleman, I am addressing myself to the coal industry at present and in future. The industry does not need to fear the dole queues of the past. Unlike the coal industries of continental Europe, it plans for expansion and not stagnation or reduction in size. To that extent, it does not need the long-term subsidy structures of other industries.

Mr. Eadie: Surely the hon. Gentleman will agree that it is a matter not merely of meeting the mining unions but of listening to what they have to say. Is he aware that there is scant evidence that he listens to the mining unions when he persists in changing the format of the National Coal Board balance sheet to show that the mining industry is in deficit? Does he agree that accountants cannot produce coal? It is miners who produce coal, and if he listens to what the miners and their leaders have to say we shall get more coal.

Mr. Moore: I would never fail to listen to the unions, the NCB and other members of the coal industry. At the end of the day, the unions will find in the mining areas that the Coal Industry Bill, "Strategy for Coal" and the commitment to a genuine successful future have been greeted positively.

Electricity Supply Industry

Mr. Knox: askedthe Secretary of State for Energy what proportion of the electricity supply in the United Kingdom was coal-generated in the most recent year for which figures are available; and how this compares with the figure for 1974.

Mr. Norman Lamont: It is estimated that the proportion of electricity supplied by the public supply system in the United Kingdom generated by coal in 1979 was about 71 per cent. For 1974 the comparable figure was about 57 per cent.

Mr. Knox: Does my hon. Friend agree that these figures represent satisfactory progress? Does he expect a further increase this year in the proportion of coal-generated electricity?

Mr. Lamont: I cannot say what will happen this year. I agree with my hon. Friend that the figures represent satisfactory progress. At present the CEGB does not have any plans to construct new coal-fired stations, although studies have been undertaken of possible developments at a number of other sites.

Mr. Gordon Wilson: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that there are reports that the AGR developments at Torness and Heysham are already falling behind schedule? Does he not conclude that it would be better to obtain more generation of electricity from coal rather than nuclear power, where the problems still exist and are manifest?

Mr. Lamont: We have to do both. We have to have a diversified system. The existing nuclear power stations on the grid system have supplied electricity at extremely competitive prices.

Mr. John H. Oshorn: I welcome the decision that has been taken on the first major cross-Channel transmission link. What are my hon. Friend's proposals for transporting coal via transmission line to our fellow EEC members?

Mr. Lament: We have none at present. The cross-Channel link will enable us to use spare capacity on the system.

Reactor Systems (Licensing)

Mr. Gummer: 9. Mr. Gummer asked the Secretary of State for Energy whether he will bring forward legislation to provide for evidence to be taken on the desirability of any reactor system for which application for a site licence is made at the time of the licensing hearing.

Mr. Norman Lament: I take it that my hon. Friend has in mind the possibility of an application by the CEGB for consent to build a PWR station at Sizewell, in his constituency. I have made it clear that there will be a full and thorough public inquiry on any such application. The principal safety documentation supporting the initial licensing of the station by the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate will be prepared with a view to its being made available to the public.

Mr. Gummer: I thank my hon. Friend for that announcement. Does he agree that it is important that people should feel that they can argue the merits of the system as well as the siting? If we are to have a proper democratic argument, whether it goes against the Government or for the Government, it is important that everyone should feel that the report is based on real evidence that has been arrived at properly.

Mr. Lamont: I entirely agree with my hon. Friend's philosophy. The Government take the view that there must be a full inquiry into any new reactor system and that all the issues must be explored thoroughly.

Dr. Owen: When does the hon. Gentleman expect such a public inquiry to be held? Will he confirm that there is increasing doubt whether the PWR design will pass even the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate? There is considerable scientific disquiet about the feasibility of running a PWR and a fast breeder reactor design at the same time. Is it not time that the Government reconsidered their decision on the PWR, bearing in mind that it conflicts with many other energy priorities?

Mr. Lamont: I cannot say anything about the date for an inquiry yet. No application to build a PWR station has

yet been received from the CEGB. As regards any conflict and any conflicting demand for manpower resources by the fast reactor as well as the PWR, we are still reviewing fast breeder reactor policy. No decisions have been taken and we do not expect an early announcement.

Mr. Palmer: If the reference is to the Sizewell site and possibly to putting a pressurised water reactor on that site, would it not be as well if the Government awaited the conclusions of the investigations of the Select Committee on energy into the nuclear power programme?

Mr. Lamont: I referred to a particular site only because it is in my hon. Friend's constituency and because there has been speculation about it. No decision has been made about any site. We are all awaiting the report of the Select Committee.

Oil Consumption

Mr. Greville Janner: asked the Secretary of State for Energy when he now estimates that the United Kingdom will be self-sufficient in the consumption of oil.

The Minister of State, Department of Energy (Mr. Hamish Gray): A rate of oil production roughly equivalent to net self-sufficiency should be attained towards the end of the year.

Mr. Janner: What steps are the Government taking to ensure that when that happy day arrives we shall have enough oil for our own use?

Mr. Gray: The Government do not expect that there will be any danger of not achieving self-sufficiency for our own use through the 1980s. There is constant monitoring and the Government will take whatever action is necessary in due course.

Mr. Emery: Does my hon. Friend accept that the price of oil is not settled by international competition but fixed by the largest cartel that the world has ever known, one that can control the supply of oil? How long are the Government to follow that cartel's pricing and what steps will they take to try to ensure its break-up so that we can achieve proper competition on international pricing?

Mr. Gray: I am sure that my hon. Friend will agree that it would be wrong


for us to under-sell oil from the United Kingdom continental shelf. We have ensured that we have never led the upsurge in oil pricing. We have merely followed it. United Kingdom oil has been sold at a figure comparable to that of similar oils in other parts of the world. We believe this to be the correct policy.

Mr. Douglas: When will the Minister make a statement on depletion policy so that we shall be able to gauge how long the considerable reserves in the North Sea could be used for the benefit of the United Kingdom economy? Secondly, will he indicate briefly the amount of United Kingdom oil that is now being exported?

Mr. Gray: My right hon. Friend will make an announcement soon on depletion policy. In 1979 approximately half of the oil produced from the continental shelf—39 million tonnes—was exported. That is continuing throughout 1980.

Mr. Banks: Does my hon. Friend agree that Britain's continued self-sufficiency in oil will depend largely on conservation measures? Will he, therefore, look at building regulations to ensure that new buildings and grants for the modernisation of old buildings are covered by regulations that ensure that they are properly insulated?

Mr. Gray: I assure my hon. Friend that those conservation measures are being considered by the Department of Energy and by my colleagues in the Department of the Environment.

Wave Energy Systems (Government support)

Mr. Hooley: asked the Secretary of State for Energy what is the current level of support by the Government of the four different wave energy systems now in course of experimentation in the United Kingdom.

Mr. John Moore: The level of support for wave energy research in this financial year is expected to be about £ 3-5 million. Work in earlier years on the four original devices, together with more recent inventions, has led to the evolution of more cost-effective designs on which future support will be concentrated.

Mr. Hooley: As there is a massive over-capacity in electrical generating plant and as the CEGB is continually

revising down its demand, should we not take this splendid opportunity to invest in this alternative source instead of proceeding with an idiotic nuclear programme?

Mr. Moore: I have drawn attention to the fact that £ 3-5 million is being invested this year, as opposed to the £ 900,000 that was invested when the programme started in 1977-78. The Government therefore recognise the importance of investing in such an important area.

Mr. J. Enoch Powell: What proportion of that investment is being laid out in Northern Ireland?

Mr. Moore: I would hesitate to answer without having been given notice, but I believe that about £ 40,000-plus will go to the project at Queen's university, Belfast. I shall give the right hon. Gentleman details later.

Mr. Eadie: As the Minister knows that informed opinion holds that research and development in wave energy have good prospects, will he give an assurance that that research and development programme will not suffer because of the Government's constraints on public expenditure?

Mr. Moore: The hon. Gentleman is right. The potential size of the resource—I stress the word "potential"—relates to 1,000 kilometres of usable coastal waters. At the most, that might create the equivalent of 30 million tonnes of coal. In the long term, it is a potentially viable source of energy. Projects have not been denied because of public expenditure constraints. Obviously, we are concerned about the sensible, wise and rational use of valuable public money.

Energy Policy

Mr. Rost: asked the Secretary of State for Energy if he is satisfied that the energy policy objectives agreed at the Venice summit can be achieved.

Mr. John Patten: 12. Mr. John Patten asked the Secretary of State for Energy if he will make a statement upon the outcome of the Venice summit in relation to United Kingdom energy policy.

Mr. David Howell: It will be of major importance to the industrialised world that the commitments undertaken at the


Venice summit to reduce dependence on oil are achieved, and I am confident that, with the full co-operation of all concerned, they will be. The United Kingdom has already made substantial progress, and we shall play our full part in meeting the summit's objectives.

Mr. Patten: Although I thank my right hon. Friend for that answer, will he give an assurance that the Government will regard the nuclear industry and the coal industry as complementary rather than as being in opposition to one another?

Mr. Howell: That is the correct way of viewing them.

Mr. Rost: Will not a commitment to less dependence on oil involve much greater effort to ensure that less energy is wasted? Are the Government satisfied that we can play our part as long as we set specific targets for energy conservation—as other Western countries do—with specific programmes and incentives for achieving them?

Mr. Howell: The proof of the pudding is in the eating, and substantial amounts of energy are being conserved. As regards new methods, such as the combined generation of heat and power, and district heating—in which my hon. Friend has played a leading role and has taken great interest—we are making good progress. Recently, 13 local authorities showed interest in participating in the current Government programme for developing CHP.

Mr. Foster: Has the Secretary of State had discussions since the Venice summit with the Minister of Transport, to encourage him to find money for the electrification of British Rail and to divert as much freight traffic to the railways as many of our international competitors do?

Mr. Howell: I have had no specific discussions since the Venice summit, but the Government have been considering electrification. Discussions were held before the Venice summit.

Mr. Dykes: Does my right hon. Friend believe that a Community oil or energy levy would help the policy objectives of both Venice summits?

Mr. Howell: I am doubtful about that. It would have a distorting effect

on world prices. It would also create grave difficulties in terms of checking what oil and oil products go in and out of the Community. That idea has been put forward by the Community and is being studied. However, I foresee grave difficulties.

Mr. Benn: Has the Secretary of State agreed to the proposal made by the International Energy Agency, and rejected by the previous Labour Government to lift all restrictions on trade in coal? Secondly, have we agreed to increase our own depletion of North Sea oil in order to help the Community to reduce its dependence on imported oil from the OPEC countries?

Mr. Howell: The answer to the right hon. Gentleman's second question is "No." I think that I have answered that question before. The position remains as I then described it. There are no restrictions on trade in coal, nor have we discussed any such restrictions. If the right hon. Gentleman has a particular point in mind, perhaps he will take it up with me afterwards. At present, I can think of no such restrictions.

HOUSE OF COMMONS

Members' and Strangers' Dining Rooms (Meals)

Mr. Freud: asked the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster what has been the number of meals served in (a) the Members' and (b) the Strangers' Dining Rooms in May and June; how this compares with the numbers for the corresponding months in 1978 and 1979; and if he will make a statement.

The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. Norman St. John-Stevas):: With permission, I will publish the figures in the Official Report. The total number of meals served depends upon the number of days the House sits, and to some extent on the business of the House. The figures show no significant variation in the average number of meals served each sitting day as between the three years.

Mr. Freud: As that answer seems to show that while the price of meals has almost doubled consumption has remained static, should not the right hon. Gentleman think about reviewing the


Government's policies on market forces, or would this cause him to double the price of meals yet again?

Mr. St. John-Stevas: That is an interesting general economic point. I shall leave it to the Chancellor of the Exchequer—the other Chancellor—to unwind that conundrum. The figures show that we have pitched prices about right. That enables the Catering Department, of which the hon. Gentleman is a distinguished ornament, to show a reasonable profit. At the same time it enables hon. Members not to starve.

Mr. Arthur Lewis: As the right hon. Gentleman intends to publish the figures in the Official Report, will he go one step further and include the figures for the Press Gallery and for those who write about exorbitant charges and so on? We should like to know what the press is doing about that.

Mr. St. John-Stevas: I understand that the press is not starving either. As part of the exercise, Press Gallery prices have been brought fully into line with those prevailing in other parts of the House. A special £ 1 surcharge has been introduced for guests in the Press Dining Room, so that it is equal shares of misery.

Following are the figures:

Total number of meals served (lunches and dinners. Monday—Friday inclusive):


Month and number of trading days
Members' Dining Room
Strangers' Dining Room


May 1978 (19) …
2,250
1,893


June 1978 (19) …
1,644
1,593


May 1979 (13) …
1,389
960


June 1979 (15) …
1,941
1,670


May 1980 (16) …
1,985
1,512


June 1980 (21) …
2,458
2,088

Strangers' and Press Galleries (Seats)

Mr. John Hunt: asked the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster how many seats are available in the Strangers' and Press Galleries, respectively.

Mr. St. John-Stevas: There are 157 seats in the Strangers' Gallery and 154 seats in the Upper and Lower Reporters' Galleries.

Mr. Hunt: As there seems to be no shortage of seats in the Press Gallery, how does my right hon. Friend justify the continuing monopoly that journalists enjoy on the reporting of our proceedings? Is he aware that when he told

me on 23 June that any relaxation of the rules governing admission to the Strangers' Gallery would result in unofficial reporting, many of us were tempted to retort "So what?" Will he refer this matter to the appropriate Committee as soon as possible?

Mr, St. John-Stevas: I know that my hon. Friend has not been satisfied with the replies that he has received about unofficial note-taking. As regards the press, there must be a certain number of seats that are not taken up at any given moment. They must be available to the press. I reduced the number of seats allocated to the overseas press at the beginning of the Session. However, my hon. Friend clearly is not satisfied, and I shall ask the appropriate Committee to consider that point. I hope that my hon. Friend will be pacified.

Mr, Hooley: In the light of the big and proper demand for the public to observe and hear our proceedings, why are 50 or 60 or more seats vacant at Question Time every day? Can we not have a more sensible allocation of tickets to prevent that from happening?

Mr. St. John-Stevas: It is up to individual Members. I have done everything that I can to encourage individual Members who are not using their allocations to surrender their tickets in time for them to be taken up by other Members. That is printed on the tickets.

Question Time

Mr. Winnick: asked the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster if he is satisfied with the current arrangements for Question Time.

Mr. St. John-Stevas: These are matters for the House. Our procedures at Question Time have, however, been the subject of regular review by Committees of the House over past years.

Mr. Winnick: Will the right hon. Gentleman consider the matter of Prime Minister's Question Time? As many hon. Members put down questions which are not answered, is there not a case for considering an extension of 10 or 15 minutes to the time during which the Prime Minister answers questions?

Mr. St. John-Stevas: I am sure that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister


would be delighted to have a further period for answering questions, because she always scores so successfully against the Leader of the Opposition and the various deputies who appear from time to time. We had a report on this matter in 1977. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has said that she will be happy to retain questions which are addressed to her, but nearly all the questions addressed to her now are open questions.

Mr. Marlow: I wonder whether it would be a helpful idea if in future the first three specific questions to the Prime Minister were always asked as a matter of course before going on to the open questions. In that way, if hon. Members wanted to ask the Prime Minister specific questions, the ballot might ensure that they had the ability to do so.

Mr. St. John-Stevas: That is an interesting and characteristically constructive suggestion by my hon. Friend. I shall certainly consider it.

Mr. Cormack: In view of the interest in the country in the views of the Opposition, could we have a quarter of an hour a month during which the Leader of the Opposition could answer questions from Conservative Members?

Mr. St. John-Stevas: That is another interesting suggestion, and I shall ponder it.

Scottish Parliamentary Business

Mr. Canavan: asked the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster when he expects to publish the report of the inter-party talks on the arrangement of Scottish parliamentary business.

Mr. St. John-Stevas: I hope that it will be possible to make this report available before the House rises for the Summer Recess.

Mr. Canavan: In view of the indecent haste with which the Government repealed the Scotland Act more than a year ago, why are they taking so long to come out with proposals for dealing with Scottish parliamentary business? If the Government are afraid of genuine devolution for Scotland, will they give more powers to the Scottish Grand Committee, where the membership more accurately reflects

the way that the people of Scotland voted in the general election?

Mr. St. John-Stevas: The delay has nothing to do with the Government. We have sent out the copies of the report and are awaiting the responses of the participants in the talks. If the hon. Gentleman wishes to be censorious, he should censor the other participants, not the Government's representative.

Select Committees (Travelling Expenditure)

Mr. Christopher Price: asked the right hon. Member for Middlesbrough, as representing the House of Commons Commission, what conditions on expenditure the Commission lays down for Select Committees travelling within the United Kingdom.

Mr. Arthur Bottomley: The Commission has recently decided that Select Committees may not incur expenditure for the holding of purely deliberative meetings outside Westminster without the express approval of the Commission. For other visits within the United Kingdom no formal conditions have needed to be imposed by the Commission.

Mr. Price: I thank my right hon. Friend for that lucid reply. Is he aware that the Select Committee on education, science and arts is grateful for the Commission's recent permission to deliberate outside the Houe of Commons, because there is a danger that Select Committees spend so much time gathering evidence that they have no time to think about it? Is he further aware that this sensible innovation should be allowed to develop and not be stopped by the Commission?

Mr. Bottomley: I thank my hon. Friend for his kind comments about the work of the Commission. The amount of money in the Estimates limits the expenditure. It would be unfair if, in the main, we did not ensure that money was spent on enabling Committees to go outside the House only for the purpose of hearing witnesses.

Mr. Stokes: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that some hon. Members are getting concerned about the proliferation and pretensions of some Select Committees and consider that their travelling should be kept to a minimum?

Mr. Bottomley: If Select Committees are to do their duty—I hope that they can—this will necessarily entail more expenditure.

GOVERNMENT ECONOMIC POLICY

Mr. Christopher Price: asked the Paymaster General when next he intends to meet the press in his official capacity to explain Government economic policy.

The Paymaster General (Mr. Angus Maude): In addition to meetings with individual journalists, I make frequent visits to the regions, where I take every opportunity to meet editors and representatives of the media.

Mr. Price: How will the Paymaster General justify to the cress tomorrow the figure of 1,800,000 unemployed? When he is next discussing Conservative posters with Saatchi & Saatchi, and if he is to have those posters full of queues of unemployed people, will he arrange to have some genuine unemployed people among them and put himself at the head of the queue?

Mr. Maude: I never attempt to forecast figures which have not been issued. I have no consultations with Saatchi & Saatchi, which is not a Government agency.

Sir William Elliott: Does my right hon. Friend agree that Saatchi & Saatchi did not double unemployment in the North-East of England during the time of the Labour Government?

Mr. Maude: That is absolutely true, and it would apply not only to the North-East.

Mr. Bagier: Will the right hon. Gentleman be more forthcoming? Whatever the results of Saatchi & Saatchi's propaganda, is it not a fact that tomorrow the highest unemployment figures since the early 1930s will be announced? Will he not give us a preview of what he will tell the press tomorrow?

Mr. Maude: If I were to do so, I might go back to a statement by the Leader of the Opposition, when unemployment was doubling under the Labour Government, that that was an inevitable result

of the financial and fiscal policies that they were following.

Mr. Adley: Is there not ample evidence from the latest opinion poll that my right hon. Friend appears to be doing rather a good job? Does he agree that the people of this country are not as stupid as the Opposition seem to think they are?

Mr. Maude: That is perfectly true. On the second question, that would clearly be impossible.

GOVERNMENT PUBLICITY ORGANISATION

Mr. Canavan: asked the Paymaster General whether, pursuant to his previous replies to the hon. Member for West Stirlingshire and the right hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Foot)—Official Report, 23 June, columns 26-7—he has placed the appropriate information in the Library.

Mr. Maude: I placed in the Library last week a copy of the press handout I issued on 25 April 1979, together with a copy of the relevant newspaper article, which, it will be seen, is substantially different from my handout.

Mr. Canavan: Why has the Paymaster General not complied fully with the request by adding his personal comments about the Government's record on each of the alleged lies told by the Labour Party? As many of those so-called lies have turned out to be bitter truths, such as increased food prices, VAT and prescription charges and the public asset-stripping of BP and British Airways, will the right hon. Gentleman now have the honesty to admit publicly that the Tory Party cheated and lied its way into office?

Mr. Maude: To some of the cases mentioned by the hon. Gentleman there was no reference whatever in my handout. In none of the cases referred to in my handout have the Government done anything which suggests that what the Opposition said at the time was not a lie.

HOUSE OF COMMONS

Telephone Service

Mr. Arthur Lewis: asked the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster if he will take steps to restore the House of Commons telephone service to the


efficiency experienced by hon. Members during the past 35 years.

Mr. St. John-Stevas: By pressing on with the creation of a combined communications centre at the earliest possible moment, the Services Committee is seeking to ensure that the telephone service will regain the standards of efficiency provided in very different circumstances 35 years ago.

Mr. Lewis: Is the Leader of the House aware that 35 years ago, with the old equipment, telephonists could take three or four messages for each of three or four Members? Now we are told that they can take only one message for one Member. Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that if the chief executive of my

local authority asks for the same message to be given to the three Newham Members he is told that he must make three separate calls? Is that saving Government expenditure?

Mr. St. John-Stevas: The best way to save local authority expenditure would be to make fewer calls. It is impossible for the switchboard operators, with the present equipment, to give the sort of service that we should like them to give. The combined communications centre will have 24 operating positions able to deal with message-taking, inquiry and connecting functions. I hope that the centre will be ready for service in the first half of 1983. Meanwhile, I ask the hon. Gentleman to exercise a little patience in the matter.

TELECOMMUNICATIONS

The Secretary of State for Industry (Sir Keith Joseph): With permission I should like to make a statement on British Telecommunications.
The present rapid growth of telecommunications and of information technology provides immense opportunities for the industries connected with telecommunications. Over the coming years the majority of British households will be affected. Whole new industries and sub-industries and many new jobs will be created.
These developments have been under way for a longer time in the United States and have gathered greater momentum there than here. I am sure that one of the reasons for America's greater success has been the freedom available there to entrepreneurs to develop new services and a wide range of equipment associated with telecommunications. The opportunities and the market are too great to be encompassed by a single organisation, however skilled and however great its resources.
For those reasons, I announced last September that the Government would be reviewing British Telecommunications' present monopolies over the supply of terminal equipment attached to the telecommunications network and over the provision of services to third parties using British Telecommunications' circuits. Following widespread consultation with interested parties, the Government have reached the following conclusions.
First, we are going to make it very much easier for equipment supplied by the private sector, including all private branch exchanges, to be attached to the network. Subject to a transitional period of about three years, there will be freedom to attach and maintain independently approved equipment which meets the necessary technical standards. The only exceptions will be the supply, installation and maintenance of the first telephone and associated wiring connected directly to the main network, and the maintenance of private branch exchanges and associated wiring, for which British Telecommunications will remain responsible. This substantial change will give the business and domestic customer a wider range of equipment from which to choose and should remove many of

the bottlenecks resulting from the Post Office's present exclusive privilege of supplying such equipment.
Secondly, we are going to allow people more freedom to use British Telecommunications' circuits to offer services to third parties which are not currently provided by British Telecommunications—for example, in the data processing field. I expect this change to lead to a significant growth in information data, transmission, educational and entertainment services provided over telephone circuits and to the emergence of new businesses. I have also decided to commission an independent economic assessment of the implications of allowing complete liberalisation for what are commonly referred to as value added network services.
Thirdly, I am exploring the scope for allowing the private sector to provide telecommunications transmission services, such as satellite business systems.
Legislation will be introduced next Session which will make provision for relaxing the monopoly. British Telecommunications will be free to compete with the private sector, but to ensure fair competition the Government intend to take powers to require it, where appropriate, to create a separately accounting subsidiary or subsidiaries where it is in competition with the private sector. We shall welcome partnerships with private capital in these subsidiaries.
I hope that the first fruits of these changes will be manifest within a year or so from now and that they can be fully phased in over the next three years. I look forward to seeing at an early stage approved extension telephones on sale in the shops and the private supply of business equipment currently approved by the Post Office, including private branch exchanges, teleprinters and MODEMS. The changes will bring new opportunities and challenges both for British Telecommunications and the telecommunications industry and I hope that both will respond positively to this greater freedom. They will have the opportunity to expand their range of products to compete successfully both at home and in world markets, and I look forward to the associated development of new enterprises and industries.
I have today placed in the Libraries of both Houses a memorandum giving fuller details of these proposed changes.

Mr. John Silkin: I note that the Secretary of State has changed his mind since last Wednesday about international comparisons. As he has done so, why has he not taken into account the experience of France and Germany, which have not destroyed the monopoly and each of which is investing twice as much as we are?
The bulk of Post Office investment is self-financing. If that is cut into, as it will be by the loss of more profitable outlets, how will that make any difference to those on the waiting list for a telephone and how will it help those who complain about high telephone charges? Is it not likely to have an entirely different effect?
As regards British manufacturing industry generally, the Post Office has traditionally always bought British. How on earth will the Secretary of State ensure that when he lets in foreign competition it will not destroy yet another industry, in addition to those that he has already destroyed?

Sir K. Joseph: The proposals will not destroy the monopoly. France and Germany are, alas, much more prosperous than we are. My statement does not presage any loss of profitable outlets now being taken by the Post Office. British industry will be given a period of grace during which to prepare for international competition.

Mr. Silkin: Would the Secretary of State like to reconsider his answer? Of course, his proposal is bound to have an effect on British investment. He says that France and Germany are more prosperous than we are. Is he saying that the United States is not more prosperous than we are?

Sir K. Joseph: I repeat that the changes proposed will not, in general, act to reduce British Telecommunications' existing revenue.

Mr. Kenneth Baker: Will my right hon. Friend disregard the rather exaggerated and gloomy atttitude of the right hon. Member for Deptford (Mr. Silkin),

because my right hon. Friend's statement preserves the monopoly of the basic network of Post Office lines in this country but allows the opportunity of a partnership between the public and the private sectors to provide ancillary equipment? To the extent that that is done, the capital provided by the private sector will reduce the demand on public sector capital requirements. Will not that provide just the opportunity that the customer requires?

Sir K. Joseph: My hon. Friend puts the case for what I am proposing much better and more vividly than I did.

Mr. Stott: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that this is a further example of his manic obsession with ripping off profitable enterprises that are publicly owned? Is he further aware that his proposals will be opposed by the Post Office Engineering Union, the members of which work in British Telecommunications? Is he also aware that taxpayers invest about £ 4 million a day in the network and equipment of British Telecommunications? If, as the right hon. Gentleman proposes, the profitable parts of the industry are to be sold off, or private enterprise is to be allowed to use them, how does the right hon. Gentleman consider that the Post Office will be able to generate sufficient finance to maintain the present network?

Sir K. Joseph: The hon. Gentleman has not got it right—

Mr. Stott: I worked for British Telecommunications for 13 years.

Sir K. Joseph: The hon. Gentleman should therefore be closer to the facts than he apparently is. Mercifully, it is not the taxpayer who is providing £ 4 million a day—if that is the right figure—for British Telecommunications' investment. The investment comes almost entirely from cash flow from the customer, not the taxpayer. The present set of proposals will make no difference to that cash flow. As my hon. Friend the Member for St. Marylebone (Mr. Baker) correctly said, the proposals will divert some of that towards other purposes which British Telecommunications cannot now serve.
I think that I have dealt with the hon. Gentleman's main point.

Mr. Butcher: Is my right hon. Friend aware that his statement will be received with delight by the British computer industry and British computer users? Is he aware that the number of terminals connected to Post Office lines is expected to quadruple over the next 10 years? Will he closely monitor the performance of British Telecommunications in checking type approvals for new devices to be released to the market?

Sir K. Joseph: It is not proposed that British Telecommunications shall have the decision about what to allow into the market. It is proposed that there shall be an independent certifying authority for apparatus, an authority that will protect the integrity of the network.

Mr. Golding: Is the Secretary of State aware that the Post Office Engineering Union believes that the proposals will be damaging to the customer, staff and the economy alike and that by creaming off profit and by allowing private outside contractors to take the pick of the businesss they will inevitably lead to slow expansion and modernisation and may also lead to a worse maintenance service and to higher prices?

Sir K. Joseph: I do not wish to associate the Post Office Engineering Union with any of the decisions that the Government have reached. Therefore, I do not want to damage it by what I shall say, but my hon. Friend the Minister of State and I have had what we regard as very helpful discussions with the union in arriving at our policy. I repeat that I am not associating it with any of the decisions made. We propose to continue consultations with the union and with other interests during the preparation of legislation.

Mr. Neale: Is my right hon. Friend aware how much his statement will be welcomed by the private telephone industry, particularly in that he has at last set Buzby free? Will he confirm that while the Post Office will be free to compete for the fitting of equipment to the system it will not be permitted to cross-subsidise between the tariff rates that it charges on the network and the rates that it charges for its equipment that it fits? Secondly, will my right hon. Friend accept that the present standards laid

down by the Post Office for fittings addressed to the system are too high and that it is time a regulatory body was established, jointly representing the Post Office and the industry, to lay down what the new lower minimum standards for that equipment should be?

Sir K. Joseph: British Telecommunications will need to account separately for the subsidiaries in which it is competing with the private sector. We intend that precisely to avoid cross-subsidisation, although the Post Office Engineering Union will be sure to say that the private sector is itself to some extent, subject to the requirement that it remains profitable, free to cross-subsidise itself.
I do not accept my hon. Friend's assumption that standards are necessarily too high. The problem with the monopoly so far has above all been that in requiring apparatus tailored minutely to British needs it has inhibited the supply of goods for a world market. I hope, therefore, that the independent certificating authority will both serve British interests and free suppliers to serve a world market.

Mr. Charles R. Morris: Is the Secretary of State aware that many will see his statement today, which envisages opening up the British telecommunications equipment manufacturing monopoly to foreign competition, as a contradiction to the "Buy British", "Buy the Flag" campaign being vigorously promoted by other Government Departments and the Daily Express? How long does the right hon. Gentleman envisage it will be before the British monopoly is replaced by the American or Japanese monopoly?

Sir K. Joseph: I am not responsible for the Daily Express, as the right hon. Gentleman knows. The British manufacturers have, to a large extent through the influence of the Post Office, been discouraged from the world market. We seek to give them opportunities in the world market, but we shall open up our own market to overseas competition only to the extent that overseas markets are opened up to us.

Mr. Cormack: As more and more people will depend on the telecommunications system for more and more ordinary, everyday information, is it not


vital that there should not be a monopoly? Would not there be sinister implications if there were?

Sir K. Joseph: I believe that the whole House will agree that a combination of a monopoly for the network and private enterprise and partnership for all the services that can be provided, either added on to the monopoly or in parallel with it, makes good sense.

Mr. Penhaligon: Will the Secretary of State confirm that he has rejected the idea of ending the monopoly over the network for all time?

Sir K. Joseph: The answer is an unqualified "No". I have not rejected any such proposition. In fact, I have announced in my' statement today that we are setting up an inquiry to see how much further we can go in liberalising the use of the monopoly.

Mr. Sainsbury: Will my right hon. Friend confirm that without the opportunities given by the arrangements that he has outlined the British telecommunications industry would be very unlikely to have a large enough or varied enough home base to enable it to export into a market that is bound to be one of the most rapidly growing in the world?

Sir K. Joseph: Yes, Sir. We are dealing with industries that are expanding explosively wherever freedom from monopoly has been achieved, as in America.

Mr. Harry Ewing: How will the Secretary of State ensure that there is the fair competition that his statement speaks of between British Telecommunications and the private sector? Is he saying that he will now remove the cash limits from the Post Office in order to allow it to compete fairly with the private sector? Does he accept that, if he is not saying that, competition cannot possibly be fair under the terms that he has just announced?
Secondly, will the private sector have an unqualified right of access to the network, or will British Telecommunications have the right to refuse the private sector the right to use the network that has been provided by the taxpayer?

Sir K. Joseph: First, it is the private sector that will fear unfair competition from British Telecommunications. Secondly, we shall very much encourage access

to private capital by means of partnerships between British Telecommunications and the private sector. Thirdly, access to the network will depend not upon British Telecommunications but upon an independent certificating authority.

Several Hon. Members: Several Hon. Members rose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. I propose to call those hon. Members who have been rising since the statement was made.

Mr. Gordon Wilson: Will the Secretary of State bear in mind, when he advances the arguments of the benefits of expansion into the world market, that the same arguments were advanced at the time of our entry into the EEC? What estimates has his Department made of the likely impact of import penetration now that the exclusive domestic market is to go?

Sir K. Joseph: Perhaps I should repeat that we shall phase in the liberalisation of our market and open it up only to firms from such countries as open up their home markets to our suppliers.

Mr. Fletcher-Cooke: As my right hon. Friend's announcement heralds a great expansion, particularly in the number of terminals that will be available, does he not agree that that warrants, and, indeed, demands, an examination of the law of privacy in relation to computers and particularly the information stored about individuals?

Sir K. Joseph: I am sure that that was important before the statement, but its importance is certainly not diminished by the statement.

Mr. Faulds: Does the right hon. Gentleman remember the havoc that he created in his reorganisation of the Health Service? Does he realise that he is now wrecking industry throughout the country with this ideological commitment of his? Does he not realise that his statements today and last week are simply a pursuit of his ideological obsession with damaging various aspects of British industry?

Sir K. Joseph: No.

Mr. Michael Morris: Is the Secretary of State aware how welcome his statement is today to the consumer, both business and domestic? In bringing forward


these proposals, will he first have consultations with the manufacturers of equipment and connectors to secure the time span that is necessary to readjust to the new competitive climate?
Secondly, will the Secretary of State say a word about the research work that has been going on, for instance, into the reading of water rates via the telephone, and ensure that this work does not come to a complete halt?

Sir K. Joseph: We have had some very useful consultations with all interests and will continue to have such consultations, including manufacturing industry. My hon. Friend is right to point to as yet uninvented or only scarcely invented possibilities that emerge in telecommunications, including the one to which he referred.

Mr. McWilliam: Will the Secretary of State expand on his statement about the special accounting arrangements that the Post Office will have to make in the areas where it competes directly with private industry? Can he say that, in equity, he will change the method by which private companies account for their activities? I have in mind a company which, for example, had a defence network contract and therefore subsidised back into its telephone installation work. Can we be sure that cross-subsidisation is not operating against the interests of the public in this area?
Will the Secretary of State also look at the question of value-added networks? Will he spend some time in looking at the recent case which has occurred in America, where a private company is renting lines from Bell and offering trunk calls at two-thirds of the rate at which Bell will give them to certain specific centres? What sort of impact would such an arrangement have on the provision of trunk calls into other rural areas, which do not attract this kind of traffic?

Sir K. Joseph: All that we are proposing for accountancy is that British Telecommunications, where it competes with the private sector, will conduct its business through a special subsidiary or series of subsidiaries whose accounts can be isolated from the accounts of the whole of British Telecommunications so that any cross-subsidising can be observed.
I hope that the hon. Gentleman will remember that the private firms have to make a profit in order to survive.
It is precisely because there could be a drastic cutting of trunk call charges, with consequent repercussions on local call charges, that we are not at this stage liberalising the whole of value-added network services but are restricting the liberalisation to services which complement rather than compete with services already provided by British Telecommunications and are initiating an inquiry into the implications of total liberalisation.

Mr. Prescott: The Minister will be aware that Hull's telephone system is uniquely owned by the local authority. His proposals would appear further to limit the income of that telephone exchange at a time when it is denied income from the national STD system, denied access to the key sector development, and squeezed by the present public expenditure cuts. Will he now heed the call of the local authority to review the capital requirements of this telephone exchange system in order to maintain the high standards that have been achieved by the local authority telephone system?

Sir K. Joseph: Hull is unique telephonically and its interests will have to be looked at carefully when we come to legislation.

Mr. loan Evans: In view of the fact that the Post Office, merely on telecommunications, has been making about £ 360 million profit each year, what effect will the announcement have on future profitability? Will British Telecommunications be allowed to manufacture its own equipment in future instead of buying it from various other firms? Will foreign firms be allowed to set up in this country to compete with the Post Office?

Sir K. Joseph: Profit prospects are not damaged by the statement today. Indeed, to the extent that the network should be increasingly used, they ought to be enhanced. British Telecommunications' manufacturing prospects will be about the same as now. I do not anticipate much change in the powers that it has about manufacture. To the extent that foreign competition is given opportunities here, we shall expect that much of it will lead to investment in this country.

Mr. Skinner: How many real jobs will be created as a result of the statement that the Secretary of State has made today?
Secondly, what effective safeguards has the Secretary of State built into the new system to ensure that the entrepreneurs compete effectively and not in the manner in which they did a few years ago when, among others, the chairman of the Tory Party, Lord Thorneycroft, on behalf of Pirelli, took so much money out of the system that £ 9 million had to be handed back?

Sir K. Joseph: I am glad that the hon. Gentleman distinguishes between real jobs and some other sorts of jobs. The number of real jobs, following the statement, that will be provided in due course is unknowable, but I would guess that it is very large indeed, probably in the public sector and certainly in the private sector.

Mr. Les Huckfield: May we bring the Secretary of State back into the real world of the ordinary telephone consumer? Since most delays in getting connected to the telephone system obviously come from a lack of investment, since the proposal that the Secretary of State has announced today will obviously erode the profits of the Post Office system and that investment, and since that will mean longer delays and higher charges to existing customers—apart from those who want to attach weird and new-fangled devices to the telephone system—how will the ordinary Post Office customer benefit? More particularly, how will the Secretary of State's proposals today result in any shortening in the delay in connection to the telephone system?

Sir K. Joseph: The hon. Gentleman is wrong in every link of his argument. The statement today will not erode the profit or cash flow of British Telecom-

munications. A large sector of users of telephones are gravely disadvantaged by delays—namely, the business community; and the freeing of private supply installation of PABXs of less than 100 lines will liberate the private sector to meet the very large demand for business use.

STATUTORY INSTRUMENTS, &c.

Mr. Speaker: By leave of the House, I propose to put together the three motions on the Order Paper.
Ordered,
That the Draft Compulsory Acquisition by Public Authorities (Compensation) (Revocation) Order 1980 be referred to a Standing Committee on Statutory Instruments, &c.
That the Draft Companies (Directors' Report) (Employment of Disabled Persons) Regulations 1980 be referred to a Standing Committee on Statutory Instruments, &c.
That the Draft Income Tax (Construction Operations) Order 1980 be referred to a Standing Committee on Statutory Instruments, &c—[Mr. St. John-Stevas.]

Question agreed to.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Ordered,

That, at this day's Sitting, notwithstanding the provisions of Standing Order No.3 (Exempted business), the Motions relating to Members' Salaries and Pensions (Expression of Opinion), Members' Salaries and Pensions, Members' Office, Secretarial and Research Allowance, Members Secretarial Winding-up Allowance and Parliament may be proceeded with, though opposed, until Two o'clock, or for four hours after they have been entered upon, whichever is the later, and that if proceedings on the Motions have not been disposed of by that hour any Amendments to the first Motion, which may have been selected by Mr. Speaker, may be moved, the Questions thereon shall be put forthwith, and Mr. Speaker shall then proceed forthwith to put the Question upon the said Motion and any Questions necessary to dispose of the other Motions and of any Amendments moved thereto which have been selected by him.—[Mr. Cope.]

PUBLIC SECTOR INDUSTRIES

Dr. David Owen: Dr. David Owen (Plymouth, Devon-port): I beg to move,
That this House, recognising the major contribution that publicly owned industries and firms have made and can make to the development of Britain's economic strength and to the retention and expansion of employment, deplores the Government's damaging policies which seek to fetter and reduce public sector activity to the disadvantage of the British people.

This debate is taking place on the eve of an announcement which is expected tomorrow and which will demonstrate the extent to which the Government's policies have already led to the most serious and damaging unemployment figures in this country's history since the 1920s and 1930s. It is, perhaps, one of the most serious situations facing our industry that we have ever debated in this House.

In the previous two debates we dealt in detail with the Government's overall financial mismanagement and with policies for alleviating unemployment. In this debate we wish to concentrate predominantly on the public sector. As everyone knows, the public sector and the private sector interweave. The figures for the second quarter of this year show the highest number of liquidations ever listed in the United Kingdom. The number of bankruptcies grows every day. There is not one hon. Member who is not faced in his or her constituency with an announcement every day about lay-offs, short-time working or closures.

The profitability margin of manufacturing in commercial companies is thought to be down to 2 per cent. this year. The percentage increase in fixed investments in the United Kingdom was 2-8 per cent. down last year, against a rise of 31 per cent. in France and 8-3 per cent. in West Germany. Despite a world economic recession, the United Kingdom is facing not simply a recession but a deepening slump. It is part of the charge against this Government that

the situation is far worse in the United Kingdom than in any other Western industrialised country.

The Treasury's index, compiled by accounting for unit labour costs, plus changes in currency levels, shows that the competitive position of British goods has declined by almost 30 per cent. over just one year. Export prices are rising quickly. Manufacturing goods are being priced out of the market. It is the contention of the Opposition that the public sector, properly managed, with a full-hearted commitment from the Government, can make a positive contribution to helping with employment and to easing some of the inflationary pressures that are building up on our industry.

The Government have set out their figures for cutting public spending over the next few years. Those figures critically depend on an extraordinary turn-round in the financial position of the nationalised industries. Such a turn-round has never been achieved before in this country. It is a tall order to expect such a turn-round when the nationalised industries have to face the same problems as private industry—high interest rates, very high if they are borrowing from the National Loan Fund, and high exchange rates—and, with inflation having been doubled within a year, all those extra costs are added to their bills. Most nationalised industries are already operating under extremely tight cash limits. It is a tall order in any circumstances and one which few independent commentators believe will be possible to achieve. Certainly, it is impossible to achieve that turn-round without the most savage increases in prices, further fuelling of inflation and a dramatic cut in investment and in services, all creating further unemployment.

In their expenditure projections, the Government do not give forecasts for individual nationalised industries after 1980-81 but give simply the aggregates for all nationalised industries. The House should be given some idea of the size of the turn-round that is expected. In 1979-80 the Government lent the nationalised industries £ 1,900 million. By 1983-84 they expect £ 553 million in repayments. In 1979-80 the total external financing of the nationalised industries was £ 2,300 million. By 1983-84 they are


expected to be contributing £ 400 million to national revenues—a total turn-round of £ 2,700 million. That is dependent on the Government's forecast of a massive upsurge in nationalised industries' profits overall over the next two years to finance that turn-round from their own internal resources. Like so many things that the Government claim, that is no doubt arithmetically achievable, but at what price? In our judgment, it will be achieved at an unacceptable price.

It is not only the Opposition who pour scorn on the Government's strategies. A few weeks ago The Economist said that the nationalised industries
feel lost in a confusing maze of policy contradictions… There is more than a touch of soap opera about the continuing story of this Conservative Government and its nationalised industries.

Soap opera indeed, but this is not entertainment. This is a tragedy, a social and human tragedy, with unemployment on a massive scale. In British Steel we have already seen the prospect of over 50,000 jobs being lost. In shipbuilding about 10,000 jobs will be lost. Soon unemployment will be felt in many more of the nationalised industries and the private sector industries that are dependent on Government support.

What is more, standards of service will fall. We have now had another miserable statement from the Secretary of State for Industry on monopoly in the telecommunications industry, coupled with a statement on monopoly in the Post Office. Does the right hon. Gentleman have any understanding of what public service is about? We have virtually reached the stage when to talk about public services is to indulge in an attack on what public service is all about. It is a fundamental part of the country's economic health that there should be a mixed economy. The monopoly that the Government attack so frequently is a feature of most other Western mixed economies, such as those of France and West Germany. It is a striking feature that, in practically all the industries that we are likely to discuss in this debate, our main Western industrialised competitors do not have an attitude of spite to the public sector. They support it, they

invest in it and, when they feel it is strategically necessary, they subsidise it.

The issue that is now before the House is whether Conservative Members even believe in a mixed economy. They seem to be able to extol only the merits of the private sector, and they are now claiming that the private sector is laid out on its back. Having witnessed what the Government have done to the steel industry, we fear the same sequence of events in many other industries. In retrospect, the steel industry has been a tragic example of mishandling and incompetence. No one can look back over the events of the last year and believe that what was conducted in the name of the Government was anything other than a shambles of industrial policy.

Sir Monty Finniston described the rundown of the steel industry as "ridiculous". Criticising those who said that capacity must be slashed because of the world recession, he said:
Where is this recession? Last year the world produced 800 million tonnes of steel, the largest amount in the history of mankind. The Japanese produce 120 million tonnes a year. Are they cutting back capacity to 80 million tonnes? They export 40 million tonnes against our total planned capacity of 15 million tonnes.

Now there is some question whether we shall be able to hold to 15 million tonnes. Sir Monty Finniston put it down to marketing. [Interruption.] If Conservative Members think that this is funny, they should go to some of the areas facing unemployment in the steel industry. It is a great shame that the Secretary of State for Wales cannot be present. He is responsible for the present situation in South Wales, where not only the steel industry but the mining industry is facing a rundown. I cannot believe that any hon. Member, whatever his view on this debate, can find this a laughing matter.

It is because we have seen the application of cash limits administered with doctrinal spite on the steel industry that we fear the cash limits that have been imposed on the coal mining industry, which we shall debate later this week. It is because we believe that the Government are not prepared to support the new technologies—the microelectronics industry has been a major example


—that we are fearful of the consequences of the Secretary of State's statement.

A month ago it appeared that the Secretary of State was at last admitting that some industrial aid schemes were necessary when he told NEDO that some of them
probably bring higher productivity and newer technology than would have been achieved had the subsidy been left in the citizen's pocket and handbag.

We saw the first U-turn of the Government's industrial policy, or at least the glimmerings of it, in the statement over British Steel. Even then, the Secretary of State could not admit that it was a U-turn. His new definition is that
It is a delay in achievement. It is not the giving up of an objective.

The whole House and most of industry now know that the Secretary of State will have to find more money for British Steel.

Mr. Roy Hughes: Does not my right hon. Friend agree that it is particularly reprehensible that during this debate, which is so much about the steel industry, no Welsh Office Minister is present on the Treasury Bench? Is not that an indication of the way in which Wales is being treated?

Dr. Owen: I fear that it is, and I fear that Wales is suffering and is likely to suffer even more deeply over the next two or three years.

Mr. Kenneth Carlisle: When the right hon. Gentleman refers to our parsimony towards the steel industry, is he not prepared to admit that over the past few years Governments have already given £ 3,000 million to the steel industry and that in the coming year the Government are pledged to give nearly £ 500 million? Surely that is generosity.

Dr. Owen: The Government faced steel industry unions which had a long history of moderation in pay claims. The Government made a ludicrous offer of 2 per cent. They ended up paying 16 per cent. The financial losses arising from that strike have been absolutely savage. No one with any experience of industrial relations does not believe that that strike was avoidable.
The question that we have to face now concerns telecommunications and attitudes to the Post Office. The

telecommunications industry in the United Kingdom is massive. It constitutes the third largest telecommunications network in the world. The Secretary of State for Industry, who, having made a statement, could not even bother to stay to listen to the debate, did not answer one question about the cash limit that is currently being applied to the Post Office. One of the questions that needs to be answered in the debate is what is happening now to the Post Office. It is unable to live this year within its cash limit and has asked for an easing of £ 150 million in order to carry out the investment to which my right hon. Friend the Member for Deptford (Mr. Silkin) so rightly drew the attention of the Secretary of State for Industry. We believe that investment programme to be vital.
We further believe that the Government must take a leaf out of the books of our main industrial competitors. France is currently investing annually some £ 3 billion in telecommunications—twice the United Kingdom's investment. The Japanese Government's support for their microelectronics industry is about £ 500 million. The Japanese have switched from being almost totally reliant on the United States to being a major exporter to the United States. The Secretary of State for Industry made great play of the fact that the United States was a private enterprise economy. He put its success down to the freedom given to the entrepreneurs. The United States has been making a massive outlay on electronics—£ 10 billion in 1979 alone. In West Germany the components industry was being supported by £ 100 million in 1978, with £ 150 million to £ 200 million being provided for the two-year chip support programme. In addition, £ 300 million is being put into research and development, matching Government grants.
The Italian Government have pumped into this area more than £ 600 million over a four-year period—including £ 80 million on chips and £ 70 million on rationalisation. With these vast figures, our industrial competitors recognise the significance of the industry. Where do we stand with the British Government? We have been waiting for over seven months for a decision from the Secretary of State for Industry on whether he can find £ 25 million as a second tranche to invest in


Initios. Even if one believes that he ought not to invest in Inmos, surely even Conservative Members agree that a decision should have been taken long since.
The Financial Times commented of the Government:
It is unfortunate that they have taken so long to make up their minds; a decision appeared to be imminent towards the end of last year. The uncertainty has been unfair to the founders of Inmos and its employees.
We read every day in our newspapers about the "indecisiveness" and "agony" of the Secretary of State for Industry. He appears to regard himself, they say, as "the guardian of the Government's non-interventionist conscience.
As he argues with his conscience, we are seeing the effects of his indecisiveness as the unemployment queue lengthens. His decision on steel is seen widely outside as making his policy of forcing businesses to live in the market with the consequences of their actions look somewhat limp.
There is now major concern that because of a fear that there would be jibes if he did not continue with his doctrinal policy, the next problem we shall see arising is with British Shipbuilders. At any moment we are expecting a decision from the Government to take the three major naval shipyards—Yarrow, Vosper Thornycroft and Vickers—out of British Shipbuilders. If that were to be done it would have a devastating effect. Once again, it is not just the critics from the Labour Benches who are making themselves heard. The Financial Times says of the right hon. Gentleman:
One fear is that he may attempt to rebuild credibility… by calling for further major cuts in the state-owned shipbuilding industry. Senior Industry Department civil servants seem to be preparing for such an eventuality even though it would further cut demand for the products of the British Steel Corporation.
Last Sunday, The Sunday Times said:
Within Whiehall the yo-yo attitude towards selling off chunks of British Shipbuilders suggests some of the shrewder Ministerial spirits have grasped that shipbuilding privatisation could involve a short stroll down a rather unpleasant plank.
The only trouble with that is that it will not be the Secretary of State for Industry who strolls down the plank. That stroll will be taken by thousands

of people whose jobs in British Shipbuilders will be put at risk.
We fear the Government's doctrinal dogmatic attitude to anything that is in the public sector. It is not as though British Shipbuilders has not been able to point since vesting day to a proud record of achievement. A major reorganisation of wage bargaining has occurred, reducing more than 180 procedures to a single bargain. Industrial disputes have been massively reduced with days lost down by a factor of 10. A 7 per cent. self-financing productivity deal has been achieved. These improvements in productivity and manning levels are having their effects in other parts of the industry.
The spite against the industry also attaches to the shipbuilding sector that is within the Government's control. They are cutting down the dockyards. They have just taken out 630 jobs in the Devonport dockyard. That is the equivalent in terms of male employment of the three modern factories that recently were eventually persuaded to come to the West Country. Every person is seeing the effects of all this.
It is not just the nationalised industries that are being hit. As Sir Michael Edwardes said of British Leyland in May,
We employ 155,000 people with another 455,000 dependent on us in suppliers and support industries.
He went on to explain that there were
around 600,000 families—2 million people—who watch BL with anxiety".
What do they see? The Secretary of State appears on television saying that he would find it "very, very hard" to persuade Ministers to provide extra funds. Has anyone on the Conservative Benches any idea of the consequences and the knock-on effects that would be felt if British Leyland were to be placed in the situation of no longer continuing to operate? Most of us would accept that important efforts are being made to improve productivity and efficiency in British Leyland, but it is struggling against a wholly unrealistic exchange rate. Sir Michael Edwardes said:
The United Kingdom is now the most profitable market in which to sell vehicles
—that is, if one is making one's products anywhere else and shipping them here.
BL is battling with high interest charges, and to put it within rigid cash limits, to drive it out of business, would be an act of savagery which surely even this Government could not contemplate.
Then we come to the Secretary of State for Energy and his responsibilities, which are of crucial importance for industry itself. Once again, we see a doctrinal attitude—for example, on British Gas. The Government have told British Gas that they want to see industrial gas prices kept in line with gas oil. That means that industrial gas prices will increase very substantially over the next year. Some industries will face a contract price increase of about 60 per cent.

The Secretary of State for Energy (Mr. David Howell): The right hon. Member has made one misstatement of fact which I would not like him to keep in his mind for longer than necessary. It was the last Government of whom he was a member that endorsed the policy of keeping British Gas's industrial gas prices in line with gas oil. This Government have recognised that that policy should have to continue, but we have urged that it should not be pursued with precision in the light of the very sharp rises in oil prices. In fact, gas prices to industry today are running, even on renewed contracts, at 25 per cent. below gas oil prices. Therefore, the right hon. Member should turn to those who were his colleagues in the previous Labour Government if he intends to talk that sort of language.

Dr. Owen: I have never denied that that was a policy that was fixed when the increases in gas oil were very much below their present level. They are now running at a massive cost, including VAT, of £ 173 a tonne—the equivalent of 40p a therm. I welcome the degree of flexibility that the Secretary of State now seems to be showing. That is new, and we shall wish to pursue that opening. Many people on both sides of the House now feel that it is time that Britain, which is energy-rich, was showing some way of trying to ease the industries that have very high energy costs in their unit costs and trying to show some selective discrimination, as is done in many EEC countries.
If one talks to many of our big international companies, one finds that they

will say that for gas they are priced much higher in this country than are companies in other countries. The European Council of Chemical Manufacturers' Federation has just conducted a survey which shows that in April this year United Kingdom chemical companies were paying between 67 per cent. and 112 per cent. more than their West German competitors. If the Secretary of State is telling British Gas that it should price at a lower contract price, no one will be happier than British Gas itself. However, it finds it a little difficult to accept that on the one hand the Secretary of State puts it in a strait-jacket, saying that it must price at market or realistic prices, and on the other hand the Government encourage the chemical industry to complain about the gas monopoly.
This inability to co-operate with the nationalised industries has been shown by the same Secretary of State who told the Central Electricity Generating Board to stock in coal for last winter because he was expecting a miners' strike. When the bill of £ 300 million was presented—a bill that overshot the board's cash limits—the Secretary of State refused to support the CEGB or back it in any way at all. In fact, he referred it to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission. That is the way that one gets rewarded if one sticks with Government policies.
We saw the same sort of thing happen to poor old Sir Charles Villiers. We may not have agreed with every policy that he had, but at least he stuck assiduously to the policies of the Secretary of State for Industry. Then, in his last few days, he was kicked in the teeth for all that he had done in the past year.
If the Secretary of State for Energy were now looking at energy pricing, we would be delighted that that had come about. Last Sunday The Sunday Times said:
The economic pricing of oil and gas in this country, much favoured by the Government, is a deceptive piece of jargon. Its effect is merely to bring our energy prices in line with a going rate set by the most powerful and irresponsible cartel of recent history.
There is a very strong case for shielding some industries from the effects of energy pricing. That goes for electricity. We have already seen British Steel, in Sheffield, unable to meet the electricity charges of £ 40 million. It also goes for


coal. If coal is to expand into the industrial market its prices must be held, and we hope that the Secretary of State will accept that British Steel must never again be put in the situation in which it has to buy coking coal from abroad purely and simply because of the effects of cash limits running completely against the £ 50 million investment that only a few years before had been agreed with the NCB and British Steel in order to expand the coking industry. It is this type of economic madhouse that brings this country—not just the public sector and the Government—into discredit.
We are now told that British Rail must sell off its assets. One of the most striking features of the Conservative Government of 1970-74 was the way in which they brought asset stripping into private industry. When we look back on the asset stripping of private industry during that period, we must widely acknowledge that that was one of the most debilitating influences on British industry. It led to a synthetic property boom and to money being poured into property and speculation in the City, and to a grave weakening of our industrial strength. I doubt whether anyone would want to live through that period again.
What have we got from this Government? We now have asset stripping in the public sector. There is not a single public sector activity in which we do not hear of some form of asset stripping. No doubt the Minister for Transport, who is to reply to the debate, will seek to justify some of the arrangements that he has arrived at with British Rail. Of course, British Rail has had to agree, but it is a shotgun marriage. It is living under extremely tight cash limits, and Sir Peter Parker has already warned of a possible £ 50 million overshoot. However, the Minister must not argue the case as being in the interests of free enterprise or competition. Who is likely to purchase these assets, or shares in these assets? Trafalgar House is tipped to bid for Sealink. Trust Houses Forte and Grand Metropolitan are tipped to bid for the hotels. There is hardly likely to be an increase in competition as a result. Profitable assets, which could have eased British Rail's financial position over a period of years, will be sold off, and the problem that—

Sir Frederick Burden: rose—

Dr. Owen: No, I shall not give way. The hon. Member can make his speech in his own inimitable way.
We object to the doctrinal attitude that all assets that happen to be publicly owned must be sold. We believe that if this country is to continue a polarised debate between the public and private sectors, its economic health will be gravely weakened.
The Secretary of State for Energy would carry a great deal more conviction with his new-found espousal of monetarism if we did not all know that at one stage he never believed in it at all. One of the most remarkable statements that he made was when he was Minister of State for Energy under a different Administration. At that time he was toeing the line of his then Prime Minister, and in an eloquent statement in "Crossbow" in 1974 he said:
In just the same way it was technically impossible for there to be cost inflation or for wages to be unaffected if unemployment rose or for demand not to be curbed if the red liquid in the tube called 'money supply' began to fall. Happy days. How simple it all seemed. And what ludicrous nonsense it now all appears—except in one or two quaint comers of the political and journalistic world where such familiar objects from the economic nursery are still hugged lovingly. For, of course, while the coloured liquids flow dutifully, real life has maddening imperfections. It just is not like that. Do these aggregates really exist? Does anyone truly know what the 'money supply' is? We are human beings living in human institutions and not pink liquids in glass tubes.
I should be only too delighted to hear an explanation from the Secretary of State. But the right hon. Gentleman does not qualify for any of the classifications that are around at present in his own Government. He is not a wet, because he nominally believes in monetarism. He is not a monetarist, because clearly he has only just been converted, but at least he has the zeal of the convert. I am afraid that history will say of the right hon. Gentleman that he is a drip.
However, there is a much more serious jibe to be made about this Government. They have in their power the sensible handling of the public sector without doctrine or dogma. They have the power to invest, to create new jobs and hold them. They have the power, where it is


sensible, to intervene in order to hold down savage increases in prices and to have an effect on the inflation that is being pumped into the system. Where it is sensible, it is reasonable for a Conservative Government, with different views from us, to rein back some parts of the public sector.
Our charge is that the Government's reigning back of the private sector owes nothing to logic and everything to prejudice. It owes nothing to a sensitive handling of human affairs but is contributing day by day to the economic disarray of Britain. If the Government were to use their responsibilities in the public sector with more intelligence and sensitivity, they could at least alleviate some of the worst hardship that is about to fall on the British people.

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bernard Weatherill): Mr. Speaker has asked me to say that he has selected the amendment in the name of the Prime Minister.

The Secretary of State for Energy (Mr. David Howell): I beg to move, in line 1, to leave out from "That" to the end of the Question and to add instead thereof:
'this House welcomes the Government's policies of restoring a proper balance between the state sector and private enterprise, and encouraging greater efficiency and a more competitive climate within such industries, to the lasting advantage of the British economy and the British public.'.
By any standards, the motion moved by the right hon. Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Dr. Owen) is a bizarre one for the Labour Party to put forward at such a delicate stage in its affairs and at such a fluid stage in its so-called policies on the public sector. The truth is that the motion and a great deal of what the right hon. Gentleman had to say are in the high Bourbon tradition—from a party that has learnt nothing and forgotten nothing about the pitfalls of excessive State expansion.
Behind the motion lies the amazingly durable myth that the secret of jobs and prosperity lies in more and more nationalisation. We are being told that again today. There is nothing in post-war experience, and nothing that any levelheaded observer could find, to support that view. There is everything to suggest that, while we all want to see good and

efficient public services, it is mistakes in the handling of the public sector and its over-extension which have done the most severe mischief to our economy, to jobs and to the prosperity of Britain. I shall come later to some of the ways in which we are tackling the enormous problems of the nationalised sector as they confront us today.
First, I wish to ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he fully realises what he is doing when he puts his support and his eloquence behind such a motion. Is it really possible that his sort of Labour Party—whatever the pottier ideas on the Benches behind him—wants to wish further nationalisation on Britain after all that has occurred? Are he and the right hon. Member for Stepney and Poplar (Mr. Shore), who is to reply, wholly oblivious to the warnings of their leaders in the 1950s and 1960s who wrote about the dangers of insisting on more and more public ownership and nationalisation? Does the right hon. Gentleman remember the late Tony Cros-land, who warned of the dangers of nationalised leviathans? Does he recall the struggles in his party to get rid of all that nonsense? Yet here we are again today with the same arguments being peddled. On, off, and now on again, the Labour Party has peddled those doctrines not for five but for 35 years, right up to the pathetic fiascos of the last Government for which we have never received a full account, such as British Tanners, another brilliant coup by the National Enterprise Board. We have seen the Labour Party learn and relearn again and again at the nation's expense. Now the doctrine has reached its apogee of absurdity with the recently published draft manifesto, with its proposals for massive new State ownership. The idea is not only alive and well; it is thriving more strongly than ever.
The right hon. Gentleman makes an appeal to the anti-doctrinaire. But when the whole mood of our times is away from dinosaur collectivism, when people are searching for a chance to live life on a human scale, how can those on the Front Bench of the Labour Opposition—whatever may happen on the Back Benches—remain hooked on that sort of philosophy? Nor is it as if the Labour case can plead the excuse that I have


heard the former Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East (Mr. Callaghan), indulge in from time to time, namely, the excuse of idealism. That was true 30 years ago. I heard the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer) say recently, with his usual engaging candour, when he was asked why the Labour Party spent so much time discussing the constitution and so little time discussing policy, that Labour Party policy was settled 20 years ago. At least, 30 years ago the Labour manifestos of 1945 and 1950 were interested in the customer and in efficiency, items which hardly received a mention in the right hon. Gentleman's speech. The 1945 manifesto, which the former Prime Minister will remember well, said that antisocial restrictive practices would be prohibited in the State industries. But the right hon. Gentleman did not say a word about that today. In relation to steel—about which the right hon. Gentleman had something to say—the manifesto stated:
Private monopoly has maintained high prices and kept inefficient high-cost plants in existence. Only if public ownership replaces private monopoly can the industry become efficient.
That was the offering in 1945. If Labour Party policy was stuck in the 1940s, 1950s or even the 1960s, we could understand the integrity of that position. But now we have a document the whole tone of which is entirely different. It is more authoritarian and a mile away from the idealism of the Labour Party of 30 years ago.

Mr. Harry Ewing: Is the Secretary of State aware that we are grateful to him for mentioning the 1945 Labour Party manifesto? That manifesto was instrumental in establishing the National Health Service in Britain. If he is so much in favour of what we said in that manifesto, why is he now so much in favour of dismantling all that that manifesto achieved?

Mr. Howell: I was pointing out that at least the manifesto seemed to have some interest in the customer, the consumer and the ordinary taxpayer of Britain—an interest that appears to have vanished out of the widow with the modern consideration, in the Labour Party, of the place of nationalised industries.

Mr. Bill Homewood: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I see nothing in the motion about a further expansion of public ownership. I cannot understand why the Minister has been allowed to continue talking for so long about that point, which does not appear in the motion.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: The Secretary of State has only just started his speech. I have heard nothing out of order yet.

Mr. Howell: I have only just started my speech. I have yet to come to the meat, and to some of the nonsenses that have been put forward by the Opposition, before coming to the Government's efforts to put matters right.
The Opposition have done a service intabling the motion. As Supply day debates provide a valuable opportunity not only to hear what the Government think and intend, which I shall spell out in a moment, but also what the Opposition have to offer, I invite the right hon. Member for Devonport and the right hon. Member for Stepney and Poplar to answer some questions. That is only right. We are entitled to know where we stand on some of the generalities that the right hon. Gentleman trotted out in the past half an hour. For instance, will they say which of the policies in the draft manifesto they accept in their capacity as official spokesmen?
Which of the policies on the energy sector does the Shadow energy spokesman accept? I imagine that the motion was tabled to enable Opposition Members to discuss that—as they clearly wish to do. Does the right hon. Member for Devon-port believe that North Sea oil should be taken into public ownership? Does he remember that when a previous Labour Opposition pledged the same it had rapidly to go into complete reverse? Does he believe, as the draft manifesto proposes, that BP should be transformed into a public enterprise instead of an independent company? If he does, will he explain what effect it would have on BP's worldwide position operating, for example, in the United States? Does he believe in
bringing into public ownership as a single unit the power plant industry"?
That proposal is made in the draft manifesto.
If he agrees with its proposals, how much does he think that they will cost? The public are entitled to know. If the right hon. Gentleman does not have the figures or has not bothered to work them out, it is my duty to the House to give the estimates which I have worked out. Nationalising the oil companies' offshore oil assets would cost £ 13 billion at today's prices. Buying out the downstream oil activities would cost a further £ 5 billion. Buying out the power plant companies would add further hundreds of millions to the bill—I estimate about £ 500 million. I shall not attempt to estimate the cost of nationalising dock and cargo-handling facilities and extending State control in the road haulage industry, let alone establishing
a significant public sector stake in each important industrial sector, including… pharmaceuticals and medical equipment".
The bill for that would be a minimum £ 20 billion.
Where is the money to come from? Is it to be a levy on workers' taxes? Is that what right hon. Gentlemen mean when they talk about an irreversible shift of power and wealth to the workers? Alternatively, is the money to be found by using the printing press? If that is how they intend to finance their proposals, it would cause the inflation in the Weimar Republic to look like a children's tea party. If the right hon. Members for Devonport and Stepney and Poplar say that the policies in the draft manifesto are not their policies, perhaps they will explain what part they will play in the redraft. I suggest that the right hon. Member for Devonport takes his courage and has a go, as did the right hon. Member for Stockton (Mr. Rodgers) against some of the defence nonsense in his party. If the right hon. Gentleman has a go, I wish him well.

Mr. Tristan Garel-Jones: Is my right hon. Friend aware that many Labour Members who normally sit below the Gangway fled at the mention of the mixed economy by the Opposition spokesman? Their answer is simple. They would confiscate the assets without any compensation.

Mr. Howell: The issues must be clarified. We have had no such clarity from the right hon. Member for Devonport.
I shall outline some of our plans and explain the Government's thinking about the State sector. I shall begin with our general approach, which was not merely parodied but distorted beyond reach of the facts and figures by the right hon. Member for Devonport. The Conservative Party and the Government have consistently thought in terms of a balance between the State sector and private enterprise in our economy. That is reflected in our amendment. It is true that our presumption is in favour of private enterprise. We do not wish an activity to be performed by the State unless there are evident and compelling reasons. That does not mean that we have not over the years, in a number of instances, found circumstances where a State presence was justified.
We are right to approach proposals for nationalisation sceptically, well aware of the disadvantages that will follow. We an; right to demand certain and careful proof of the benefits claimed. What is more, we are right to go on questioning. I do not accept that because an industry was taken into State ownership 30 years ago at the high noon of the Morrisonian era, for whatever reasons, we should be content for its status to be set for all time by divine order. Its status is set by Parliament for such time as Parliament chooses. One of the most clear expositions of that argument was made by Mr. Edmund Dell, the former right hon. Member for Birkenhead, who has now left the House. The right hon. Member for Devonport used the word "doctrinal" about 40 times. Let him not believe that the word describes Conservatives. It describes people who have constantly pleaded for more and more nationalisation without balance and without proper consideration.
The Government are practical but they are right to question the State sector. We think that it is over-extended and we intend to reduce its size. That is our duty. We must provide the best arrangements for our people and, in particular for the customers who buy the products and services of our State sector industries.
I turn to the situation that we found last May in the State industries and in the nationalised sector on which Opposition Members claim to be such experts. Certainly there was a time when the Labour Party, early in its last period of


Government, preached and tried to practise financial responsibility and price realism in the State sector. However, by the last election the virtue was not in them. The effects of the IMF health farm cure wore off and they were well and truly back on the bottle.
The last Government established the idea in theory of cash limits. The right hon. Member for Devonport branded cash limits as the work of Satan, but they were the work of his right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, East (Mr. Healey). They were more frequently breached than honoured, and that is almost as bad as having no financial discipline. In a way, it is worse.
In all. the nationalised industries taken together were responsible in 1979-80 for a net addition to the public sector borrowing requirement of £ 2-3 billion or 19-5 per cent. of the whole PSBR. Not only did the losses make an immediate and heavy demand on the taxpayer, but they greatly increased the Government's need to borrow, so making the task of controlling the money supply much more difficult.

Mr. Arthur Palmer: The right hon. Gentleman has a short memory. Was it not a Conservative Government led by the right hon. Member for Sidcup (Mr. Heath) who insisted that in the fuel industries' prices should be held constant, thus forcing the electricity supply industry, for the first time, into the red? It was left to a Labour Government to return to realistic pricing.

Mr. Howell: The present Government have been castigated for the last half-hour for doing just that. The memory of the right hon. Member for Devonport seems to be short. He made considerable play of the proposed turn-round of £ ½ billion in nationalised industries over the four-year period. That is less than the turn-round of £ 3 billion which was achieved between the heady days of 1974-75 and the crunch period when the IMF told the Labour Government how to behave. A realistic pricing policy has been followed before on a larger scale. To say that this is being done for the first time in history is factually and statistically incorrect.
The situation could not be changed overnight. In 1979-80 we were severely limited by time in the extent to which our policies could influence well-established and existing trends. Some of the truly ugly and appalling results of those trends are still working through. Opposition Members try to ascribe those results to policies undertaken since we came to power, but they spring from policies and efforts made during their last chaotic days in Government.
From this year our policies will begin to provide the opportunity to shape matters more decisively. Above all, we are convinced that the cash limits system can work only if cash limits are adhered to. Of course, there will be difficulties and changing circumstances. We are always prepared to talk to the nationalised industries' chairmen about their problems If there are genuine difficulties which require a modification, we are prepared to consider each case. An example was the electricity industry's cash limit for last year, to which the right hon. Member for Devonport referred inaccurately. The industry put to me that the fall in electricity demand and unexpected costs, including the build-up in its stock, made achievement of its cash limit impossible. After having agreed certain rigorous offsetting economies, I was prepared to make an alteration in that cash limit. The right hon. Gentleman has the story wrong.
We have set the nationalised industries' financial targets for a period of three years ahead. I am the first to concede that that is not easy to do. It is so difficult that, while paying lip service to the principle of three-year financial targets in their 1978 White Paper, which they produced with a great flourish, the previous Government found it too much of an effort, certainly in the energy industries, where they set them for no more than a year.

Mr. Harry Cowans: Will the right hon. Gentleman also draw to the attention of the electorate the fact that most public sector industries are failed private sector enterprises? That was the reason why the Government took them over. The Government are only hiving off the sectors of nationalised industry that appear to be making a profit. How will the taxpayer pay for the rest?

Mr. Howell: I am dealing with the major problems posed by the existing nationalised industries. I shall come to those parts that could attract private capital or just as easily be in the private sector. My right hon. Friend will have more to say on that matter.
It is important to set three-year financial targets. Industries that fall within my responsibility have had such targets set. Compared with the one-year ad hoc targetry of the previous regime, which was a significant handicap in planning their business, the changes have been of benefit to the industries and enabled them to plan sensibly for a dangerous and uncertain energy future, where huge investments will be required to meet the turbulence created by the 145 per cent. increase in world oil prices in the past 11 months.
We are also pledged to establish performance targets, which will be of significant help to the industry, satisfy the Government and the taxpayer and help the customer to judge the standard of service that he is receiving.
The nationalised industries chairmen's group has put certain arguments to the Government about the working of the cash limit system, particularly over the way in which investment is treated. My right hon. and learned Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer told the House that the Government were ready to consider with the nationalised industries chairmen possible modifications, and we are doing so.
Another important and overdue change that the Government have made in handling nationalised industries is the provision in the Competition Act which, for the first time, makes it possible to refer nationalised industries' activities to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission for investigation. That power has already been used over computer rail services, the Severn water authority and the Central Electricity Generating Board. In other areas, such as telecommunications, about which my right hon. Friend made an excellent speech this afternoon, and the postal services, we are widening exposure to competition, which will be of great benefit to the public, customers and the industries. I am glad to confirm our intention to remove the statutory prohibition on the generation of electricity

as a main business as soon as a suitable legislative opportunity arises.
In all those respects we are determined to make nationalised industries more efficient, more responsive to the needs of the taxpayer and the customer and more able to run their businesses within the strict financial and performance criteria that the Government must set.
I have said that the Government are firmly of the view that the public sector is over-extended, and we want to restore the balance. The right hon. Member for Devorport became obsessed with the word "doctrine". The imbalance and the tilt towards massive over-extension of the public sector has arisen as each Labour Government have rushed with renewed enthusiasm into further and more disastrous ventures of public ownership. We are committed to reducing the extent of State activity. My right hon. Friend will go into the detail of the progress that we have made in restoring the balance and rolling back the extended frontier of the public sector and the plans we have for the future.
I wish to draw the attention of the House to one project in the energy area that constitutes a milestone in the journey onward from the stale principle of nationalised everything—the gas-gathering pipeline proposed for the North Sea. As proposed by the Government, that scheme will involve the first private sector utility in this country for many years. It offers a major opportunity for sources of private finance to step in and take the burden off Government borrowing and the taxpayer. It should be welcomed on all sides of the House, although, needless to say, there has been a deafening silence from the right hon. Gentleman.
The right hon. Gentleman returned understandably to his concern over unemployment, which we all share. As far as I understand his remedies and the proposals in the motion, they would make an ugly situation far worse. Everyone who bothers to stop and think knows that the bellows approach—puffing up demand by monetary inflation—is useless. In his more courageous days, that was the firm view of the previous Prime Minister and the right hon. Member for Devonport, although he tends to keep his views on these matters to himself. It was also the view of the right hon. Member for Leeds, East


for a brief Camelot period, until he reverted to a damp neo-Keynesianism, which had nothing to do with the views of the late Lord Keynes.
Everyone knows that nations like ours must look to smaller and newer enterprises, providing products and services that may not have been even heard of or categorised in Whitehall officialdom, for the jobs and prosperity of the coming years. It is hard to envisage anything less appropriate for Britain than lumbering us with the reactionary centralism offered by the Opposition in their motion, which has nothing to do with the needs of the economy in the 1980s.
The nation wants no more nationalisation. It wants less. I suspect that the right hon. Member for Devonport and some of his friends want no more of it either, although they need to fight quickly and courageously if their views are not to be swamped. What we have heard today from the Opposition is the intellectual flotsam of the past. It has no place in a creative and better future. The right hon. Gentleman and his right hon. and hon. Friends continually express fears for the future, but I suspect that they are fears not that we shall fail but that we shall succeed—as we shall.

Mr. David Wafkins: There is not a single publicly owned industry in the country that is not under attack and being damaged, perhaps irreparably, by this Government's policies. Among the welter of damage and destruction, no industry is more severely under attack than the steel industry. Perhaps one omission in a speech notable for the omission of anything remotely relevant to the debate is hardly surprising, but it is interesting to note that the Secretary of State made only a passing reference to the condition of the steel industry in 1945.
My constituency is heavily dependent upon the steel industry. It will be more affected by the Government's damaging policies in closing down large sections of the industry than any other place where closures are proposed. I am not minimising the serious effects of steel closures wherever they take place.
I note that the Secretary of State for Industry has not graced or troubled us so far in the debate. The right hon. Gentle-

man constantly wrings his hands about what he says will be the terrible effects of the shutdown of the Consett steelworks, yet he acquiesces in the unjustifiable closure of Consett and does everything he can to encourage it. Indeed, the whole Government seek to encourage the closure with all the means at their disposal.
This policy will be socially disastrous. It will put 3,700 steel workers out of jobs plus many hundreds in dependent occupations. My right hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Dr. Owen) said in his able opening speech that there is an inevitable linkage and interaction between the publicly and privately owned sectors of industry. Many of the hundreds of additional jobs that will be lost as a result of the shutdown at the Consett steelworks will be in private firms that depend for their existence on contracts with the BSC works at Consett.
The shutdown of the steelworks will devastate an entire community and send shock waves of increased unemployment through, for example, coal mining and transport throughout the North-East of England, a region that has already been savagely hit by the Government's policies.
If the policy is disastrous on social grounds, it is deplorable on economic grounds. We are not talking of an old rundown plant that is working at a loss. It is a modernised, efficient and profitable plant with one of the best productivity records in Europe. The productivity of the Consett steelworks is about 240 tonnes of liquid steel per man year. The BSC average is 140 tonnes and its target is 180 tonnes. Consett is already performing well above the corporation's target figure, at a level that compares favourably with that of Germany, which has one of the most productive steel industries throughout Europe.
Consett is meeting all the criteria that have been laid down by the Government for survival, but, seemingly, that has not been welcomed by the Government. The Government appear to be doing their best to discredit Consett's success in meeting their criteria. In reply to me in the House the Prime Minister has made great play of the fact that the Consett plant was unprofitable between 1975 and 1979 and that it became profitable only in the last quarter of 1979. Nobody is disputing that. How on earth could it become profitable until the loss-making


sections were eliminated? All those sections have been eliminated. The last of them, the plate mill, was closed in October 1979, with the negotiated loss, which was accepted by the trade unions and the community, of over 400 jobs.
Since then, steadily increasing profits have been made at Consett. In September of that year there was a profit of £ 24,000. In October the profit increased to £ 110,000 and in November to £ 340,000. At that stage the monthly figures suddenly stopped being published. Then came the steel dispute, which lasted for three months. What a classic example of the damaging effects of the Government's policy upon nationalised industries! The dispute in the steel industry was deliberately provoked by Government policy and deliberately prolonged as part of the Government's policy towards the industry.
Following the ending of the dispute, the workers set up new production and productivity records practically every week. All that we have heard from Ministers while that has been going on is vague claims that the plant is making losses. Those claims have not been substantiated.
In the week ending Saturday 12 July—the week before last—9,000 tonnes of liquid steel were produced at Consett. That was an all-time record in the history of iron and steel-making at Consett. It has been leaked that a profit of £ 187,000 was made at the works in June. The monthly figures for Consett are being suppressed because they would destroy the spurious case for closure if they were known generally.
My constituents have been repeatedly told "Make the works productive and profitable and they will survive." They have made them productive. They have made them profitable. They did everything that they were asked to do. In that process they sacrificed about 2,500 jobs in an already badly hit community with high unemployment. However, they have been betrayed; they have to listen to their achievement being belittled and misrepresented.
On 10 July, during the very week of all-time record production, the Prime Minister said that Consett was again
in a loss-making position."—[Official Report, 10 July 1980; Vol. 988, c. 757.]

I hope that the right hon. Lady will check the facts and even consider making a personal statement to the House.
I have concentrated my remarks upon my constituency and the consequences there of the damaging nature of the Government's policies towards publicly owned industries. Although Consett is the most extreme example of the Government's damaging approach to the steel industry, it represents only a fraction of the damage that is being done to the industry generally. If the Government's present proposals are implemented in their entirety, they will cripple the steel industry and make Britain dependent in due course on imported steel.
More than one carefully researched forecast of the world steel market prophesies a growing demand for steel from 1981 and conceivably a world shortage by 1985. Against that background, it is not surprising that no other steel-producing country is cutting back its steel industry in such a manner. France, Germany and Italy are all planning to increase their output—no doubt with a view to taking over the markets that Britain proposes to abandon.

Mr. James Johnson: Just like the fishing industry.

Mr. Watkins: Exactly. Those countries are proposing to take over the markets that Britain apparently plans to abandon, including the home market.
By 1985 the Government's proposal to build a new force of nuclear submarines will presumably be well advanced. If present policies continue, the British steel industry will not then be able to supply the steel. Irrespective of the merits or demerits of the Government's armaments policy, there is every possibility that we shall have to rely on imported steel. Nothing could be more ridiculous. Will we have to rely on imported steel from the expanded industries of France, Italy or Germany, or perhaps the United States of America? We may have to rely on imported steel from American companies in which Lazard Freres of New York has financial involvement.
The Government stand condemned by their policies towards the publicly owned steel industry, public enterprise


and everything that concerns the public interest—let alone by the the motion, which I shall be supporting.

Sir Frederick Burden: I fully understand and sympathise with the hon. Member for Consett (Mr. Watkins) about the redundancies that will occur in his constituency. I am sure that all hon. Members will agree with that expression of sympathy. However, when he has taken stock of the situation, I am sure that the new chairman of the BSC will make his views clear on Consett. Given the figures that the hon. Member for Consett has provided, I hope that serious consideration will be devoted to Consett's future.
It is difficult for anyone with objective ideas about industry to understand how one can maintain an industry that is vastly over-producing for several years because of the possibility of greater demand many years hence. How can it be kept at full production in the meantime? It is difficult to over-estimate the dangers of bankruptcy that would follow such a course.
The right hon. Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Dr. Owen) did little to justify the nationalised corporations. He was full of excuses for them. He spoke a great deal about doctrinaire attitudes and dogma. It is the Labour Party that holds doctrinaire attitudes and uses dogma in relation to industry. It said that the State, or the community at large, should own or control land and the means of production for the common benefit of the people. That is the basis of Socialism. I was in the Chamber in the early days of nationalisation. I remember the glee with which it was embraced by the Labour Party. The leaders of the Labour Party led the public to believe that nationalisation would result in greater industrial efficiency. They said that it would be a pacesetter in innovation. They also said that nationalisation would keep down prices, improve the economy, advance living standards and, above all, improve industrial relations beyond belief.
In the manifesto of February 1974 the Labour Party said that it would take over shipbuilding, ship repairing, marine engineering, ports, the manufacture of airframes and aero engines, sections of

the pharmaceutical industry, road haulage, construction and machine tools. It said that it had the takeover of banking, insurance and building societies under active consideration.

Mr. Homewood: Mr. Homewood rose—

Sir F. Burden: The hon. Gentleman has been bobbing up and down like a yo-yo. I may give way later, but I have no doubt that he will make his own speech.
Statements were handed out to the public and the nation soon after the end of the war about the advantages of nationalisation. If nationalised industries have not matched up to the obligations that were clearly stated by the Labour Party, the case for further nationalisation must be suspect. In 1974 there was no reason for the Labour Party to take over such enormous areas of industry, including banking, insurance and the building societies. What benefit would the public and the country gain from such takeovers? It is interesting that the Labour Party made the following statement:
We intend to socialise existing nationalised industries. In consultation with the unions, we shall take steps to make the management of existing nationalised industries more responsible to the workers in the industry and more responsive to their consumers' needs.
In view of what happened during the winter of discontent, that is a very suspect statement.
The consumer did not benefit greatly from nationalised industries; nor were the workers of those industries overwhelmed with satisfaction. When compared with similar industries in other major European countries, our nationalised industries are the least efficient.

Mr. Stuart Holland: The hon. Gentleman has made a very interesting claim. Would he care to cite the source? If he looks at the European Centre for Public Enterprise in Brussels, he will find that British industry is often more efficient than its European counterparts.

Sir F. Burden: The hon. Gentleman can make his own speech. I shall come to that point shortly. He may be surprised to hear what I have to say. Between 1961 and 1977 the nationalised industries lost a total of £ 15,302,000,000, or about £ 2-5 million every day of every week. At the beginning of last year the economist Walter Eltis wrote an article


in Lloyds Bank Review. He commented on those losses and said that not a single year between 1961 to 1977 had shown a surplus.
From a loss in the nationalised industries of £ 273 million in 1961, the deficit rose to £ 2,728 million in 1975. As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State pointed out, that figure remained about the same in 1978. The public corporations have never been able to cover interest on accumulated debts in addition to wages and salaries. They have had to borrow increasing sums to pay the interest that they could not cover from sales revenue. That is only part of the story.
Between 1968 and 1975 £ 2,652 million worth of debts, including interest charges, was written off by the Government. The corporations had no resources to finance capital investment. All money had to be borrowed. That increased the Government's borrowing requirement at a faster rate. Ultimately, the taxpayer has to stump up, because Governments have no money. The Government therefore funded the large deficit that had arisen from overmanning, continued operation of inefficient plant, restrictive practices and the need to keep the unions happy. They did so in the interests of the unemployment figures. The Financial Times contained a report—as I am sure the hon. Member for Vauxhall (Mr. Holland) will be interested to know—in the summer of 1975 that compared the performances of European industries. The values were converted to the existing exchange rates. It is little wonder that Britain was at the bottom in every case. Germany was top in steel, and Britain was bottom. That was in terms of production per man—[Hon. Members: "What was the measurement?"]. This was measured by man output and by the cost per unit produced. It is no good Labour Members shaking their heads. These are the facts. I know that they are unpleasant and unpalatable, but they are facts.

Mr. David Watkins: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Sir F. Burden: No. I am sorry, but I have quite a lot to say.
The National Coal Board was at the bottom of the list with regard to coal. The Netherlands was top with regard to railways, and British Rail

was bottom. The same sorry story applies to the National Bus Corporation. It was second from the bottom, and, not surprisingly, London Transport was bottom—[Hon. Members: "On what?"] On production per unit per man—[Hon. Members: "What does that mean?"]. Hon. Members will be able to make their own speeches.
Steel is an important subject today. Britain was once the greatest steel producer in the world. We led the world in both quality and output. But now the German steel worker produces about five times the amount that is produced by his British counterpart.

Mr. Watkins: Mr. Watkins rose—

Sir F. Burden: I am sorry, I have given way once. I know that Labour Members do not like these facts, but they are facts.

Mr. Watkins: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way. Surely he must be aware that there has been no competition in the steel industry since 1936, when the old steel masters carved it up. He has referred to productivity, which is a correct and fair way to judge the industry. How does he justify a policy of shutting down the most profitable and productive works in the country—Consett—which is equalling the best German levels of productivity?

Sir F. Burden: The hon. Gentleman is quite wrong in saying that there is no competition, because even in this country private steelworks are making a profit. If they were not, they would have been driven out of business. Sheerness steelworks is one example. It is essential that the BSC competes in price and quality with overseas suppliers in order to enable Britain to produce products, in which steel is a main ingredient, which are of a quality and a price that enable it to operate in world markets. Many Labour Members would argue that we should keep all the steel mills open irrespective of production.
We shall be interested to hear in the Opposition reply exactly what action they would take in order to estimate exactly what they would do with the British steel industry. I shall be interested to hear how many plants they would keep open. Many Labour Members say that they should all be kept open in the interests of full employment. Is that


so or is it not? If it is not, why not admit it, as well as admit that there will be considerable redundancies and unemployment in the steel industry? Why do the Opposition continue to maintain that this is all due to the present Government when they would probably have to do the same themselves?
Production in competition with overseas countries is also lacking in respect of coal. In 1977-78, it fell for the fourth year in succession from 63-6 cwt. to 434 cwt. per man-shift. At the end of 1978, Joe Gormley estimated that only 3-7 out of five shifts were actually worked because of absenteeism. Those are not my words but the words of Joe Gormley. I am merely reminding hon. Members of them. Now, of course, Mr. Scargill and the wild men are demanding an enormous increase in wages, which will inevitably increase the price of coal very much more. Already, as we have been told—and it has never been denied—it is possible for British consumers to import coal from Australia and America more cheaply than it costs to buy it on the home market, which has such enormous reserves.
If the wages of the miners go up so substantially, so will the price of coal, and if the steelworks have to buy the coal from Britain instead of importing it, so will the cost of steel. That will affect many of our goods that are sold on the world market. It will also exacerbate our employment situation.

Dr. M. S. Miller: I draw the hon. Gentleman's attention to the terms of the amendment, which I presume he is supporting. It asks that:
this House welcomes the Government's policies of restoring a proper balance between the state sector and private enterprise".
Does not he agree that what the Government have done is totally to destroy the public sector? Will he apply his mind to that?

Sir F. Burden: I shall apply my mind to that. Everything that I see leads me to believe that the Government are absolutely right to take such a critical view. Large wage increases in the coal industry will not only increase the price of steel but will increase the price of electricity and cause considerable hardship to the domestic user in this country, unless—and

this is always a possibility—there is a considerable increase in coal purchases from countries where it is cheaper.
In addition to the large increases in wages which Mr. Scargill and others are asking for, do the miners still receive free coal? Perhaps my right hon. Friend can tell me. If they do, and if it is in any substantial quantity, it adds considerably to the value of their overall wages. That should be known as well. Apparently the right hon. Member for Devonport does not know. I invite him to tell us.
In an article entitled "The true deficits of the public corporations", Walter Eltis, the economist, stated:
In 1972, 1973 and 1974, they did not even earn enough to cover wages and the salaries of employees. The final surpluses have at no point been sufficient to cover the interest cost or accumulated debt in wages and salaries.
They have, therefore, been increasing borrowings in order to pay interest that they are unable to cover from sales revenue. The result is that the total debt and interest which they had to pay have both risen rapidly. He went on to state that this was especially disturbing, because official interest costs are an understatement of real interest burden. A total of £ 2,602 million of debts of public corporations was written off between 1968 and 1975 and the central Government absorbed them, but that was never shown. The nationalised industries borrowed much money overseas. All that must be paid back in foreign money. They even understated the interest costs, which made it clear that the borrowing of the nationalised industries has increased. The accumulated debt had increased the whole time in the nationalised industries. They have had no money to finance capital investment.

Mr. Stuart Holland: No money?

Sir F. Burden: They have had no money to finance capital investment. They have had to borrow it or it has been a subsidy.

Mr. Holland: Mr. Holland rose—

Sir F. Burden: I have already given way to the hon. Gentleman once. It has been a subsidy from the Government. They have never earned it from their revenue.

Mr. Holland: Nonsense.

Sir F. Burden: All the money that they required had to be borrowed. That increased their total debt and the Government's overall borrowing requirements still further. No responsible Government can allow that situation to continue.
The economic strains imposed on the previous Labour Government by the demands of the nationalised corporations played a considerable part in forcing them to go cap in hand to the IMF. I should like to know what advice the IMF gave to the Labour Government on their handling of the nationalised industries in future. I suggest that the IMF told them to look at them objectively and to evaluate cost accountability.
If Opposition Members doubt the critical financial situation that arose, why did the Labour Government go to the IMF? Why were they unable even to pay old age pensioners their Christmas bonuses in 1975 and 1976—[Interruption.]—which this Government have now restored? That is a fact and I suggest that hon. Gentlemen look it up.

Mr. Palmer: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. What have old-age pensioners to do with the organisation of the nationalised industries?

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I think that the hon. Gentleman must make his own speech.

Sir F. Burden: I was very careful to link it with the financial situation that caused the Labour Government to go to the IMF. I illustrated the need for them to go to the IMF when they were not in a position to honour their obligations to the old-age pensioners for their Christmas bonuses in those years.
I am convinced that if another Labour Government were elected the pressures from the Left wing to carry out the suggestions which were made in the February 1974 Socialist manifesto to take over the financial organisations and to extend nationalisation right accross the board would be enormous. I am also convinced that if the previous Labour Government had been returned last year they would have had to look with a critical and objective eye at the situation of the nationalised industries. They would have had a great deal of opposition from practically every Labour Member if it meant cutting back, making redundancies and so on. It would

have been complete anathema and would have been called treachery by many of the extreme Left-wing members of the Labour Party and they would have opposed it bitterly.
I believe that this Government have taken the correct course. They have pointed out where the nationalised industries have failed, and they have failed in many areas. The greatest indication of the sense of the Government as a whole and of my right hon. Friend the Minister of Transport, who is to reply to the debate, was shown clearly last week when he made his statement about the railways. I remind the right hon. Member for Devonport that the chairman of British Rail was appointed by the Labour Government. He appeared to be no friend of the Conservative Party. Presumably he was appointed by the Labour Government because he was a man of integrity, knowledge and experience. The greatest tribute to the move towards rationalising and improving British Rail came from the chairman of that organisation when he admitted that he wholeheartedly accepted the proposals put forward by my right hon. Friend last week.

Mr. Gordon A. T. Bagier: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Sir F. Burden: No. I have given way several times.

Mr. Bagier: I know the chairman of British Rail better than the hon. Gentleman does.

Sir F. Burden: If the hon. Gentleman knows the chairman of British Rail, perhaps in his speech he will tell us more about him.

Mr. Bagier: Mr. Bagier rose—

Sir F. Burden: The hon. Gentleman will be able to confirm it.

Mr. Bagier: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Sir F. Burden: I am not giving way. I have almost finished. I have given way quite a lot. I have given way more than anyone else in the debate. The right hon. Member for Devonport would not give way to me at all.
There is no doubt whatsoever that the nationalised industries need to be looked


at in the light of the conditions of the 1980s and the experiences that they have gone through since becoming national corporations.
I am sure that in the long run the measures taken by the Government will not only make the nationalised industries more effective but will improve the prospects and prosperity of the people working in them, will improve industrial relations and, above all, will ensure that consumers get a better deal from many of the nationalised industries than they are getting now.

Mr. Ray Powell: I am surprised at the suggestion by the hon. Member for Gillingham (Sir F. Burden) that miners should not receive free coal.

Sir Frederick Burden: I did not say that.

Mr. Powell: My father was a miner. I should not mind betting that Conservative Members pick up more in expenses in one day than any perks that my father had in the whole of his life. It is a disgrace that hon. Gentlemen should suggest that those who go to the bowels of the earth to extract energy for the country should be deprived of the small concession of a ton of coal six times a year when business men and company directors are taking perks which are bleeding some of their companies dry.
I want to concentrate on some of the rubbish to which we have listened since about 4 o'clock from the Government Benches.
Last weekend the Prime Minister, despite my warning at Question Time last Tuesday that there was no welcome for her in Wales, turned up. There were 2,000 police, supported by just as many members of the Special Patrol Group, I suppose, to protect her from 10,000 protesting workers in Wales. I see the Under-Secretary of State for Wales looking to try to correct me. Are my figures correct, or have I given an underestimate?

The Under-Secretary of State for Wales (Mr. Wyn Roberts): The hon. Gentleman overestimates very considerably when he talks of 10,000. I understood that it was between 2,000 and 3,000 at most.

Sir Anthony Meyer: It was raining.

Mr. Powell: The Minister was inside the pavilion listening to the Prime Minister, whereas I was outside counting. My counting and my arithmetic are far better than the Under-Secretary's.
Despite the fact that it was raining, when my friends and I marched the streets of Swansea protesting with placards we were protesting genuinely. Because of what the Government had done in 14 months—the desecration of the Welsh economy, industry, steel workers and the theat to the miners—we felt that it was necessary for some of us to stand up and start shouting.
When I gave the Prime Minister that warning last week, I knew of the uprising that is taking place in Wales. I know of the numbers who have been deprived of jobs—not only men in the steel industry but women in the textile industry in my constituency. When they marched in Swansea, they were protesting in a proper manner to the Prime Minister.
I stayed up late last night to watch the television programme on the Tory conference. My hon. Friends continually complain abount the coverage that the Labour Party receives from the BBC, but the coverage of that Tory conference highlighted the collapse of the ridiculous, mad monetarist policies that the Government are pursuing.
If the Government are right, why was the Prime Minister not prepared to go to the people in Wales and to listen to the objections? Why did she have to be escorted in and out of the back door of the conference? Those waiting to protest did not even see her. Indeed, it could have been her double at the conference.
The 10,000 trade unionists who were protesting at the Prime Minister's policies did not see her and she could not have seen much of them, except through the windows of the conference hall, but she said:
From what I have seen of them, I do not want them on my side.
That was not what she said when she conned them into voting for her 14 months ago, and that phrase will live in the minds of the people of Wales for a long time.
The Prime Minister told an over-enthusiastic audience, consisting mainly,


I am told, of bankrupt business men and out-of-work civil servants:
Does anyone really suppose that any party, having won a great victory, would actually want to send unemployment figures up? I tell you this. No Government deliberately increases unemployment.
The Prime Minister denied that the Government's policies were depriving people of jobs. It is, therefore, reasonable to request the Minister who is to reply to the debate to explain why the unemployment figure, which is to be officially announced tomorrow, is 1-85 million after 14 months of the Government's period of office. Can he explain why there have been 30,000 redundancies in the steel industry, that at least 2,000 people are losing their jobs daily, that there are 100 to 150 bankruptcies every week and that the unemployment figure is far higher than in the 1930s?
My right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition issued a challenge to the Prime Minister before she spoke in Swansea, but she did not reply or refer to it. Is it true that the Government are seriously considering the closure of one or other of the main steelworks in South Wales—Llanwern and Port Talbot—or, indeed, that they might consider the closure of both? If such a move took place, it would seriously affect the continuation of our coking coal-producing collieries in Wales.
What will the Government do when industries of that magnitude are closed and redundancies escalate in areas such as my constituency, where we have 4,000 to 5,000 steel workers still working at Port Talbot and 4,000 to 5,000 miners producing coking coal? What will the Government do to find jobs for my people? It is reasonable for us to expect a reply on those aspects of two of the major nationalised industries which are suffering as a result of the Government's policies.
The Prime Minister suggested on Saturday that if unemployment escalated in Wales, the best plan for the workers would be to move. She admitted that that might be painful, but it was her only suggestion. The right hon. Lady deliberately ignores the economic consequences of moving for working-class men. Where should they move? Many people have been put out of work in areas that have always been considered to have plenty of employment.
If those who lose their jobs move to London or the East Coast, where unemployment is increasing, they will be faced with the need to purchase properties that cost twice as much as those in South Wales. The cost of moving and reestablishing their families is far too great for them to contemplate a move. It is even more difficult to move into industrial areas than it was in the 1930s.

Dr. M. S. Miller: Does my hon. Friend agree that the coal industry is vital to the economy of the country and that, encompassing, as it does, energy that we can take from the ground for the next 300 years, it should be expanded and not contracted in the way that the Government propose?

Mr. Powell: I agree that the industry should be expanded. I could go on at length about the energy value of the coal industry. I was born in the Rhondda valley, where numerous collieries were closed in the mid-1960s. I do not put all the blame on the Conservatives. We were just as responsible for the closure of collieries at that time. A number of people objected strongly.
Nov/ that those valleys are closed in the Rhondda, the coal will never be brought from the bowels of the earth there because water has seeped in and soaked the whole of the seams. We shall not recover the energy that is now buried in the collieries of the Rhondda. I thought that the nation had learnt the lesson. If we have emergencies and need energy, the usual source is coal.
Time is passing, and a number of other hon. Members wish to speak, but I should like to make one or two points about Saturday's statement by the Prime Minister. Because of the complacency of Conservative Members, because they will not stand up and be counted, the message is not getting through to her. Conservative Members know as well as Labour Members that the people want to see the Government change their policies. People who supported the Government 14 months ago, people who helped get them elected—the business men, the CBI and other people—are warning them to change their policies before we slip too far down the slippery slope.
When I listened to the Prime Minister on television last night saying that people should move, my first thought was that


the best idea for the people of Wales, if they had to move, was to look for accommodation in Finchley, which is the Prime Minister's constituency.

Mr. Wyn Roberts: Has it occurred to the hon. Gentleman that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister might have been thinking of people moving within Wales? Surely he is aware that 47 per cent. of the Government's United Kingdom factory-building programme is to be located in Wales and that no less than £ 48 million is being spent through the Welsh Development Agency and other Government agencies on remedial measures in connection with the steel closures.

Mr. Powell: What the hon. Gentleman says may be correct. I heard him say exactly the same on television last night, when he talked about the £ 48 million and the percentage that is being sunk in Wales for economic recovery. It is not enough.
Only two years ago in Wales, in Ogmore, in Bridgend, we were jubilant. We were a growth area, with the Ford engine plant coming in at a total cost of £ 180 million to give jobs for an estimated 2,500 people. What has happened? Ford now says that it will employ no more than 1,500 people in the engine plant at Bridgend, and 500 of them will be redundant Ford workers from Swansea and other areas. As I have said, that plant is to cost £ 180 million. The figure of £ 48 million to try to solve our problems in Wales is ridiculous.

Mr. Don Dixon: How does the Prime Minister, who seems to want to turn Britain into a country of industrial nomads, expect people to move? Does she expect them to take their schools, old people's homes and hospitals with them when they are put into other areas? In my constituency we have had migration for many years. The young and active are leaving, and there is an increasing burden on those who stay. The Secretary of State for the Environment is cutting public spending. Who will keep the old people in their homes, who will keep the hospitals going, who will pay for the schools, if the young and active move at the Prime Minister's behest to find employment? Would it not be easier to tell the employment to go where the

workers are, instead of the workers being industrial nomads?

Mr. Powell: I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. What he says is true. If the Government are not prepared now to spend money on public services, they will not spend it when people move into areas.
I have referred to Rhondda, and my hon. Friend speaks of Jarrow. Both areas sent most of their population marching to London over the problem of unemployment. I see areas of the Rhondda derelict as a result of the closure of collieries and of people being asked to go away. I see streets of homes empty, playgronds not being used and schools that are under-used as a result of Governments' past economic policies. It is wrong to talk about people moving when it is just as easy in the 1980s, when we are passing through a technological revolution, to move industries back to Wales and to particular areas of Wales.
The Government's policy is to create new jobs in soundly based and competitive industries. The CBI, the Stock Exchange and all the Government's other friends entirely reject that argument, fundamentally because the soundly based and competitive industries of 12 months ago are going to the wall That is happening consistently. Only last weekend a firm in my constituency, soundly based and very competitive, established in 1945—Christie Tyler Limited—was compelled to close four factories, throwing 300 people out of work. The firm was renowned as a good employer and had excellent trade union relationships. Production was always on target.
What is to blame for that closure? Government policies are at fault. Consumer demand is strangled. Warehouses are full and order books are empty. The unions cannot be blamed for that. It seems that as a result of Government policies the only work that is becoming available is work for the Official Receiver.
I have taken well over my time. I conclude by telling the smug and indifferent Members on the Government Benches, those with majorities of 27, 2,700 or even 12,700, "Ask your constituents whether they would vote for you now." If the feedback from the Tories in other constituencies is anything


like the response from the Tories in Ogmore, we shall never see a Tory Government again. I warn Tory Members "You either change your policies or your leader or you change your profession, because you have only a short time here."

Mr. Mark Wolfson: I shall start by addressing myself to some of the points made by the Shadow energy spokesman, the right hon. Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Dr. Owen). I am sorry that he is not present now. The right hon. Gentleman said that he regarded the debate as fundamentally important to the economy and as being of concern to people in Britain. I agree, and I am a little surprised that on a Supply day attendance on the Opposition Benches is rather thin.
The right hon. Gentleman suggested that the Government's policy towards the nationalised industries was one of spite and that this was in contrast to the policies of Governments in other indust-trialised countries where the mixed economy was accepted. As a supporter of the Government's policies, I have to say that nothing in my experience of the industrialised industries or in the contacts that I have had with management or workpeople in those industries, would make me feel any attitude of spite towards them. They are a crucial and important part of the British economy, and the people who work in them do a crucial and important job. It is vital that this point should be made often from the Government Benches.
The right hon. Gentleman went on to particularise steel, shipbuilding and today's announcement on telecommunications as examples of where the Government's policy was spiteful towards nationalised industries. These are unfortunate examples.
We have heard examples of how the current problems of the steel industry are deeply affecting the lives and future of people in steel-making areas, and I have much sympathy with them. Nevertheless, in the steel industry there was huge overinvestment at a time when it was not realised that the demand for steel worldwide would fall. In addition, that overinvestment was in some cases not effectively used. That is an example of the danger that occurs with nationalised

industries, because they are large and inflexible, and when Governments get behind them things can either go very well or, equally, they can go very badly.
The shipbuilding industry has a long history of really difficult labour relations, and an old history—now mercifully less apparent—of demarcation disputes which hold back productivity. Over the last 10 years, British shipbuilding has been falling badly behind.

Mr. Dixon: I agree with the hon. Gentleman when he talks about shipbuilding having had bad industrial relations for a considerable time. I was a shop steward in the industry for many years. Does the hon. Gentleman accept that, since vesting day, British Shipbuilders has a record second to none in this country for good industrial relations? Indeed, my right hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Dr. Owen) mentioned that from June 1977 until this year the number of wage bargaining units for manual workers and staff had been reduced from 182 to one. There has also been a tenfold reduction in the number of industrial disputes. The hon. Gentleman's point about industrial relations does not, therefore, apply to the British shipbuilding industry.

Mr. Wolfson: I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman for making that point. I agree with him that there has been a dramatic improvement in industrial relations in that industry. Whether it has been due to nationalisation or to a realisation by those working in the industry that unless industrial relations were improved they would not remain even at a low level of competitiveness is not yet clear.
The point should also be made that shipbuilding is one industry that is benefiting considerably from the Government's policy of strengthening our Armed Forces. Money from the Government is benefiting those working in the industry and, at the same time, improving their job security.
The example of telecommunications, again, was not a very good one to take, because the postal services to the customer have come to be of an acceptably low standard. The moves that the Secretary of State for Industry has made in this area to free the industry will, I suggest, be of benefit to the consumer.
One of the mistakes that the Opposition make—they made the same mistake when


they were in office—is to place tremendous emphasis on the retention of jobs in industry whether or not those jobs are helping to meet a market need. I accept that there is a balance to be drawn between market need and the needs of the customer, and that is exactly the policy in which the Government are involved.
I should like to consider briefly the history of the nationalised industries and the reason for nationalisation. First, there were the political reasons, which were elaborated for us by my hon. Friend the Member for Gillingham (Sir F. Burden). One of them was to control the commanding heights of the economy. Conservative Members are unlikely to agree with that reason. Indeed, as my hon. Friend rightly said, there are now many Labour Members who would not favour an expansion of that political role, although equally there are others who are very much in favour of it and who would be likely to go for it when the next opportunity arises. The country should be aware of that alternative.
Secondly, there were the economic reasons, relating to those public services which could no longer attract private capital in order to modernise. The coal mines and the railways were two examples.
Thirdly, there was the great idealism and the hope that, when nationalised, the industries concerned would provide a better working life for the people in them.
It is extremely sad that in the steel industry in particular the hope of long-term job security has been dashed. In the context of economics and security for employees, therefore, the history of the nationalised industries is not encouraging. Indeed, they have not been able to deliver the goods over the past 30 years in the way that was hoped.
The right hon. Gentleman said that if the nationalised industries were properly managed and had the full-hearted support of the Government, they would be effective. That takes me to my next two points.
The problem of running nationalised industries is twofold. First, they have no final accountability. Governments are always in a position—often assisted by pressure from their own Back Benches—to bail out the nationalised industries

when they get into difficulties. It requires the most immense strength of mind and sense of long-term responsibility for that pressure to be resisted.

Mr. Bagier: Will the hon. Gentleman agree that, particularly in the case of the energy industries, they have got into trouble because successive Governments have used them as economic regulators?

Mr. Wolfson: I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. I agree that this is the danger in many of the nationalised industries. I do not, however, believe that the policies of the present Government are being directed in that way.
The next problem is that management is always in danger of being interfered with in the nationalised industries. As a result, the industries have become increasingly inflexible, because they are unable to respond sufficiently enough to market forces.
The steel industry is a good example of that. The industry was prepared to slim down early, but there was resistance from hon. Members and from the Government of the day to that slimming down, at a time in the world economy when it could have been more easily achieved and with less human difficulty and social problems than now. I illustrate my point by quoting the example of the unrealism of there never being final responsibility and accountability in the nationalised industries. Soon after he took office, the general secretary of the National Union of Railwaymen, Mr. Sidney Weighell, said:
It is no problem of mine whether the British Railways Board are able or not able to meet my members' pay claim. My job is to get the same level of settlement for my members as other nationalised industries have already achieved.
Is not that an unrealistic view for a senior trade union leader to take if he is concerned about the long-term security of his members' jobs? I appreciate the work that he has to do for them, but it is not in the long-term interest of the preservation of jobs to take that attitude.
The Government's policies on nationalised industries are neither doctrinal nor spiteful. There will continue to be a role for the Government in assisting the development of nationalised industries. Nothing that we have heard today from my right hon. Friend the Secretary of


State for Energy suggests, and I doubt whether anything that we shall hear from the Minister of Transport in his reply to the debate will suggest, that there is not a role for the Government in improving the ability and productivity of nationalised industries within sensible limits. There is a role for the Government, which this Government are performing at present.
The Government's policies on the British National Oil Corporation fit that pattern. The result of freeing the BNOC's monopoly has been an increase in activity by private and smaller oil companies. We now have a wider spread and a less monopolistic approach in the development of oil licences. That is valuable for Britain, not only in the short term, in the creation of jobs, but also in the longer term. As North Sea oil resources run out, it will be advantageous for British companies to be in partnership with a number of other international consortia for development elsewhere in the world in the future, using our expertise in the long term. That would not have happened had the existing arrangements under which BNOC operated been allowed to continue.
Are any hon. Members satisfied when they compare the services given by nationalised industries with the services of private companies—for example, the Sealink services of British Rail compared with those of free enterprise on cross-Channel services? It is obvious that one service is run by British Rail—a nationalised industry—and others, which are cleaner, where service is more positive and where there appears to be a better espirit de corps among the staff, are run by free enterprise companies. Likewise, a private hovercraft company has been profitable for many years, but British Rail's operation is still unprofitable. That is a good reason why the Minister of Transport has taken steps in that direction. The Government have a continuing responsibility to work in partnership with British Rail for the improvement of rail services in Britain. The Minister has chosen to investigate whether other funding and a freer method of operation involving free enterprise can improve services that are not crucial to the mainstream operation of British Rail.
Government policy towards the public sector is positive, and the aim is clear.
It is not doctrinal but it is thoroughly practical. Mishandling in the public sector, which is so large and all-embracing, can bring disaster. There is a crucial need for a broader, less monopolistic base, in which some companies will develop and others will decline. These policies give that opportunity a chance of reality and achievement. That is why I support wholeheartedly the Government's amendment to the Opposition motion.

Mr. David Penhaligon: If I were 30 years older, and if I had been elected to the House 30 years earlier, I should have argued at that time for an increase in the size of the public sector. I do not have a great deal of time for those who own land and industry in Britain, and I would not have done then. The evidence of the last 30 years suggests that the increase in the size of the public sector is not advantageous to the economy, and I see no argument now for any substantial or sustained increase in that sector. That does not mean that there is not a role for the State in running our economy.
Not long after I was elected to Parliament, the then Labour Government spent a substantial amount on bailing out Ferranti from its impending financial doom. That was right and proper. A few months ago this Conservative Government announced that they were to sell Ferranti back to the private sector. I believe that that was also right and proper. The irony is that if the Conservatives had been in power when Ferranti collapsed originally, they would have let it go. If Labour were in power now, they would keep Ferranti in the State sector. What happened was right but it was by pure chance. Ferranti was helped when it originally collapsed, and it is now to be returned to the private sector.
There is a role for the Government in industry, but it should not be in an ever-increasing section of the economy. I believe that the State sector is too big, and some of the moves by the Government to reduce its size will not receive any opposition from me. However, the Government are trying to go too fast. In modern politics a solution taking more than five years is of no interest to a politician. However, the Government


have set industries financial targets that are totally untenable. The speech of the right hon. Member for Plymouth, Devon-port (Dr. Owen) had much to commend it in that respect. He spoke of the turn-round being requested in times of great financial difficulty. The Government have set targets of which industries will fall short, and they will have to face a U-turn of their own making.
For all that, some of the Government's policies on the nationalised sector make no sense. The Minister of Transport is here, so I shall refer to his area of responsibility. He is the only Minister present. At the Venice conference the Prime Minister announced that Britain, with the other Western Governments, would make a sustained effort to reduce the consumption of oil. That is obviously right. How the Government can possibly tie that with their current policy on public transport, however, I do not know. Public transport is being eroded—in my area past the point of no return.
Let us consider the position in the urban areas. London has a deteriorating public transport system, with rail fares permanently escalating. I do not see how the Government can possibly relate their objective of reducing the consumption of oil to their policy of, in effect, reducing public transport. That is not a coherent approach.
Britain is fortunate in having good, mineable coal deposits. We are about the only country in Europe that can claim to have plenty of coal. We also have great oil and gas reserves. But at a time when the rest of the world is trying to get away from oil and increase its coal output, the Government invest £ 10 billion to £ 15 billion in building pressurised water reactors all over the country. This massive sum is equivalent to £ 400 for every household—and yet our coal reserves are to be largely ignored. I fail to grasp the rationale of that policy.
Anyone listening to this debate will see what is largely wrong with the two-party system in Britain. One side praises nationalised industry as though it were the perfect solution. The other side pretends that nationalised industry is all bad and rotten. Each side claims that what the other does is wrong.
I see the hon. Member for Falmouth and Camborne (Mr. Mudd) on the Conservative Benches. The Falmouth ship repair yard is in his constituency, but it affects mine as well. The Labour Government closed it at a stroke, and he and I know why: it was the only part of that great nationalised industry that was not in a Labour constituency. We are seeing something of the same now with the Government taking their chance to get at the steel industry, which largely is located not in Conservative constituencies but in South Wales and other areas which, for Conservatives, are of little electoral consequence.
Far less dogma and far more pragmatism should be applied to the nationalised industries. I should particularly welcome a response from the Minister of Transport to say how he relates the Government's policy on public transport with the Prime Minister's declared determination substantially to reduce our consumption of oil.

Mr. Roger Moate: I welcomed the first few remarks of the hon. Member for Truro (Mr. Penhaligon). I presume from those remarks that he will be supporting the Government amendment. His last remarks about the closure of steelworks in Labour constituencies resulting from some political plot by the Government were contemptible. If he believes that politicians on either side of the House act in that way, he has a low opinion of all human beings. I hope that he is not judging others by his own standards.

Mr. Penhaligon: I do not claim all knowledge, but I had considerable experience of the Conservative Party in Opposition trying to win back parts of the country which they thought were naturally and rightfully theirs—for example, Cornwall. For week after week and month after month, the Conservative Party in Cornwall kept saying that the Falmouth docks were being closed purely and simply because they were in a Conservative constituency.

Mr. Moate: I make no such judgment about the Labour Party; nor would I expect others to make it about the Conservative Party. If the hon. Gentleman alleges that steelworks are being closed


because they are in Labour constituencies, he is debasing politics. I am sorry to say that, because generally the hon. Gentleman talks rather more common sense than he has this evening.
It is remarkable that on a day when the Opposition table a Supply day motion in extreme terms condemning the Government for their action on matters that are, presumably, dear to the Labour Party, the Labour Benches are an expanse of green, with hardly any Members present. When a Supply day motion is being debated, it is incumbent upon the Opposition to demonstrate the strength of their feeling. At this moment only three Labour Members are present—

Mr. Penhaligon: And a third of the Liberal Party.

Mr. Moate: Labour Members are outnumbered at least two or three to one by my hon. Friends who are present. I hope that those in the public sector industries who think that they are getting the support of the Labour Party will take note of the truth. The motion embodies a spurious proposition. If it were anything else, Labour Members would be here in massed ranks to argue the case. There are more than enough Conservative Members present to defend the Government's position, if it needed defending.
It is remarkable, given the problems of British industry, which we all acknowledge, that the Labour Party should choose, here and elsewhere, to launch a debate on nationalisation. The major problems facing our industry have been caused by the world recession, by technological change and by other developments in world trade. Even so, the Labour Party made proposals at the Wembley conference and in its draft manifesto for the expansion of public ownership. Such a proposal is likely to condemn the Labour Party to electoral oblivion. Labour Members do themselves a gross disservice by advancing this sort of proposition.
The debate is not basically between the Government and the Labour Party. It is between the Opposition Front Bench and hon. Members below the Gangway, the Tribune group—if only they were here.

Mr. John Patten: They have a meeting.

Mr. Moate: Then it is a long meeting. They absented themselves as soon as the right hon. Member for Plymouth, Devon-port (Dr. Owen) rose to speak. I do not know whether he had been thinking evil thoughts and spirited his hon. Friends away, or whether he bored them out of the Chamber. If it were the latter, I have some sympathy for their point of view. His speech was one of the most unconvincing and self-righteous that I have heard for a long time. I use the term "self-righteous" deliberately. It is unconvincing for a party that was in office 14 months ago now to adopt the pose that everything that is wrong with British industry has been caused by the present Government.
I do not believe that Governments have the power that is attributed to my Government by the Opposition and by many commentators. It takes far longer than just over a year for policies to work through and have such an effect on the economy, whether for good or ill. Admittedly, current policies are having some effect, but by and large the present state of the country is more attributable to the inheritance left by the last Administration than to the actions of this Administration. That is why I find it totally self-righteous for Labour Party spokesmen to attribute the current problems of British industry to the events of the last 12 months.

Mr. Donald Anderson: Does the hon. Member disagree with those Conservatives who trumpet long and loud that there has been a clear change of direction over the nationalised industries?

Mr. Moate: No, I am not saying that there has not been a change of direction. I hope that there has. But it has not yet had the major effect on the nationalised industries that was attributed to it by the right hon. Member for Devonport.
It was a little unfair of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Energy to expect the right hon. Member for Devonport to announce policies on behalf of his party. After all, he is only its spokesman. How can he possibly know what policies will be enunciated by the Tribune group? In fact, I suspect that, rather like the shadow spokesman on defence, the right hon. Member is probably not consulted at all about these matters. Nevertheless, his contribution was pretty unhelpful in the context of the


general performance of the nationalised industries and the private sector, faced with the problems of today.
Regardless of the party in power, there has been an inexorable decline over a long period in most of our public sector industries. It is foolish to attribute that to one party or the other. One has only to look, for example, at the coal industry. In 1947 nearly 750,000 people were engaged in that industry. That figure has now dropped to 235,000. That is a tremendous change—a revolution in coal mining. On the railways, on the same time scale, the number employed has dropped from nearly 700,000 to 244,000. That change is continuing inexorably, regardless of the Government and regardless of policy changes.
It is clear that the economic facts of life are steamrollering out of existence the commanding heights of the economy that the Tribune group is so determined to take over. It must be frustrating for the ardent Socialist to find that those commanding heights no no longer exist.
The nationalisation argument over the years shows that the tragedy for the taxpayer and the country is that the Labour Party has always managed to get into office and take over many of these industries at a time when they were facing a serious decline. As a result, the taxpayer has had to meet the costs of phasing out large sections of those industries, politicians and Parliament have had to carry the odium for the social changes that have followed and we have delayed the changes in efficiency that were desperately needed.
I have some sympathy for the ardent Socialists who see their case almost disproved because they have taken over industries at the wrong time. But that is their problem. It seems to happen almost every time. If one were trying to prove the case for Socialism, one would feel that it was an extraordinary time to take over the shipbuilding industry—when it is going into a massive decline, alongside enormous surplus capacity throughout the Western world. But that is just what happened. We had the classic example of the taxpayer carrying the massive burden of closures and small but efficient yards being damaged but nothing long-term being achieved for those who work in the industry.
This is my complaint about the Labour Party's posture on nationalisation. It is not helping those who work in the public sector if it tries to kid them that somehow nationalisation provides greater job security. It definitely does not. One only has to look at the steel industry and the record of the previous Administration to see that.

Mr. Palmer: If a poll were taken of workers in the nationalised industries, does the hon. Member really suppose that they would vote for a return to private enterprise?

Mr. Moate: I suspect that, given the choice of closure or a return to private enterprise, the vast majority would opt for survival. If people in the private sector were asked whether they wanted to stay in the private sector or be nationalised, they would all opt for the private sector. Those are more significant points than the one that the hon. Member put. If, for example, the 60,000 people working in the private steel sector were asked whether they would rather remain there or be nationalised, they would resoundingly vote to remain in the private sector. The health and strength of the private steel sector should be studied more carefully by the whole nation as an object lesson in the operation of a mixed economy for the benefit of everyone.

Sir Anthony Meyer: Perhaps my hon. Friend would care to reflect on the example of Brymbo steelworks, which was originally bought rather forcefully from BSC by private enterprise. The transfer was welcomed by the employees. They have never ceased to bless the fact that the works was handed over to private enterprise, because they have done much better since.

Mr. Moate: That is a clear example of an open-minded, pragmatic approach to the question of public versus private sector. That is the lesson we should draw from all that has been discussed and done in the past decade. Let us be pragmatic. The Government are not being doctrinal, as they were accused of being by the right hon. Member for Devonport. We are taking a pragmatic and sensible approach. Where it is clear that certain sections of the economy have to stay within the public sector for practical reasons, we have adhered to a


policy of taxpayers' support. I must remind the House that we are still talking about taxpayers' support; I believe that the State sector will receive taxpayers' support this year to the tune of £ 25 billion.
Surely, in an ideal economy we would want these major industries to support the taxpayer. We want those industries to make profits to build hospitals and roads. But that is not the way it is. Those industries are leaning on the taxpayer, rather than the other way round. That cannot be the right approach.
Pragmatically and sensibly, one can say that certain industries can be better managed, be more efficient and provide better job security if they are "privatised". It is simply a question of management.
I am pleased that my right hon. Friend the Minister of Transport is to wind up the debate, since I wish to put a number of points to him. I believe that his has done more than most other Government Departments to ensure the future efficient management of State assets where the consumer is paramount. The consumer decides whether he will travel by private enterprise or British Rail ships, whether he will stay in British Rail hotels, whether he will use private or public transport. The consumer has been determining the decline of public transport. We must somehow meet this need and not turn a blind eye to it.
The Labour Party pretends that we are damaging the railways by our current policies, but that is a myth. It is worth reminding Labour Members of the history of rail closures. They talk about the Tory Party and the Beeching axe, but in the last 10 years of Labour Government nearly 4,500 miles of railways were closed, compared with under 3,000 miles in the last 10 years of Conservative Government. The inexorable facts of life drove the Labour Government to make more rail closures than the Conservative Government.
The reality of life now is that there is a desperate shortage of investment capital for all our major public industries. That shortage would exist even if the Labour Party had won the election. If it was now in power it would impose tough cash limits on British Rail and other public sector industries.
The Minister of Transport has managed to persuade the Chancellor of the Exchequer—and I do not know how he did it—to keep up rail support, the PSO and other grants, to almost exactly the levels as applied previously. Given the problem of capital shortage and the desperate need for investment in British Rail and its subsidiary companies, does it not make sense to introduce private capital into those sectors of the railway community where private capital could work? The Labour Party has its head in the sand when it condemns the proposals to sell the subsidiary companies.
My right hon. Friend made it clear that the proceeds from the sales would go to British Rail. If the consumer on British Rail was asked "Would you rather have British Rail hanging on to its office blocks and hotels or having extra capital to electrify certain lines and improve commuter services?", the consumer and the taxpayer would say "Let British Rail stick to running railways and get out of those sectors where it has not been successful."
There is not an hon. Member in the House who can say that the record of BR hotels is good compared with the private sector. Judged by the needs of the consumer, the needs of British Rail investment, and especially job security and job opportunity, the hotels would be far better off in the private sector.

Mr. Jack Dormand: Give us some evidence.

Mr. Moate: The evidence is all around us. The private groups have built modern and profitable hotels while British Rail has built only one new hotel since the war. It has made a profit of only £ 328,000 from 39 hotels. [An Hon. Member: "It has been starved of investment capital."] That is true. It has been starved of investment capital by successive Governments, as have Sealink and the hovercraft company, because it is within the public sector. If Opposition Members wish to do a favour for the people who work in those industries, they will say "Get as far away from any Government as you can." If I was a trade union leader thinking of my members in those hotels, I would want to get as far away from the public sector as possible, so that we could have an expansionist policy


based on profitable investment and the satisfaction of consumer needs.

Mr. Ioan Evans: What happened to Ferranti and the shipbuilding industry under private enterprise? The shipbuilding industry declined from producing 30 per cent. or more of the world's ships to about 4 or 5 per cent. under private enterprise. That was an absolute decline. It is succeeding under public ownership far better than it did under private enterprise. It is obtaining new orders that it could not achieve under private enterprise. Ferranti collapsed under private enterprise. It was rescued by public money, but it is now being sold again.

Mr. Moate: I should be happy to spend a long time explaining why I think that the whole of the Ferranti saga has been a dreadful error, but this is not the moment. I dealt with shipbuilding earlier. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman was not in the Chamber or did not listen.
I hope that Opposition Members will look at subsidiary companies a little more pragmatically. The Government have made a moderate and sensible proposal that will benefit everybody, whereas the present arrangement is damaging British Rail interests.
In other areas also the Minister of Transport has taken action—for example, by encouraging the introduction of new private capital into bus transport and by the sale of motorway service areas. I expect that Opposition Members are opposed to that, but it will benefit the taxpayers by bringing in cash and improving service to the consumer.
Another area where my right hon. Friend has made initial proposals which I greatly welcome, but about which we have not heard the final details, is that of the ports. As with British Rail's subsidiaries and the National Freight Corporation, my right hon. Friend has entered into an understanding with the British Transport Docks Board—which administers the industry and understands its true needs and best interests—for the partial or complete denationalisation of the industry and the introduction of private capital. Some time ago my right hon. Friend announced that he had agreed with the BTDB a scheme, in prin-

ciple, to introduce private capital in some form or another. I welcome that as a major change of direction in the ports which will be of great benefit to the country.
As in other areas, the phasing down of many of the greater ports in Britain with their great concentrations of labour has proved that smaller and more efficient units are successful Many of those units are under private ownership, many are in the public sector and some are trust ports. It is not so much ownership that counts as the good fortune in location and the independence of management. That is why it is right that the BTDB should, of its own volition, get as far away from the Government as possible and become an independent private organisation.
It is a helpful trend that the ports are being told "You manage your affairs without Government interference and without even the burden of the National Ports Council". They do not need the Government to direct them. The more the Government direct them, the less efficient they are likely to be. I welcome the steps that my right hon. Friend has taken to introduce private capital for the benefit of the consumer. It would be helpful to hear whether he has yet decided when and how the BTDB will be allowed to introduce private capital.
As a party and as a Government, we say that the present mixed economy should continue. There are areas where we can introduce private capital for the greater benefit of industry, the people who work in it and the taxpayer. The Opposition will do a great disservice to Britain, and an even greater disservice to themselves—but why should we care about that?—if they advocate an even greater expansion of public ownership.

Mr. John Golding: I speak as the political officer of the Post Office Engineering Union—a job that has never been easier as thousands more Post Office engineers are beginning to realise how damaging are the political decisions of the Government to their occupational interests.
For 20 years I have called attention to the inadequacy of Post Office investment. We are suffering today from under-investment in the past, especially


on underground cables. Many faults are occurring because of past reluctance to invest in modern plant and equipment. The frustration of the telephone users has its origin in past public spending cuts. I have in mind the Barber cuts of 1973. Unfortunately, the customer blames the present Post Office staff rather than politicians who have long since been forgotten.
The Government's cash limits policy has been especially harmful. They have treated telecommunications—a vital part of our economy—as though it was a spending department rather than the profitable, vital, economic service that it is. In their attempt to cut the public sector borrowing requirement, the Government have undermined a sector that is vital to our economic growth. Of course, the Post Office should be subject to outside financial control. The Post Office Engineering Union accepts the 5 per cent. return target and the task of reducing costs in real terms by 5 per cent. a year. Which other business is set such a task at the present time?
The Post Office Engineering Union does not accept that over the past three years there has been a requirement to pay back £ 173 million, of which £ 110 million fell in the last financial year. It is no wonder that customers are irate because they cannot obtain telephones and that staff are upset at their failure to obtain the stores necessary to provide an efficient service.
The Post Office Engineering Union is also worried because restrictions on borrowing this year have led to reports of a cash gap of at least £ 200 million. It fears the consequence for the business and its members if management is forced to take decisions against their interests.
Limits on borrowing by businesses which are thriving do not make sense from the point of view of employment, the customer and the economy, which will become even more dependent on telecommunications and computers. The cash limits on the telecommunications business have led to higher prices, waiting lists for telephones and other equipment, a less efficient service and a significant slowing down of the technological development on which we shall depend so much. It is not surprising, given the crippling of telecommunica-

tions by the Government, that customers complain and workers lose heart.
Barlow was able to blow his top and leave. Rank-and-file engineers who have devoted their working lives to the Post Office do not see why they should leave what could be a proud public service. The Conservatives have used public discontent to further their ideological opposition to profitable public enterprise. The proposals announced this afternoon will take substantial sums out of telecommunications, although they are needed to expand and improve the quality of services.
The Post Office needs at least £ 1,500 million a year—or £ 4 million a day—from its own resources or from others in order to invest. In a nutshell, the proposals will put money into the City at the expense of everyone else, particularly at the expense of the small towns and rural areas. Higher prices and a worsening service are the most likely consequences of the Government's policy.
Dividing the maintenance of telecommunications is bound to lead to a worse service, extra cost and maintenance difficulties. Can one imagine the arguments between the Post Office and other suppliers when a fault occurs originating either in the Post Office network or equipment or in privately supplied equipment? Post Office engineers maintain the entire network and accept responsibility for repairing any fault free of charge. They do not blame another source. They do not shuffle off responsibility. The television repair man can blame the aerial, not the set. He can disappear with the customer owing him money for calling at the house. There is no charge now for repairing a telephone fault. In future, it is likely that the customer will be told "It has nothing to do with me. The other firm is at fault." We should avoid that.
The Government say that they are opening up the business to competition. They know that if they allow private circuits to be used by all and sundry—to cease to be private—they will be creaming off. The creation of the subsidiary is a device which will make it more difficult for the Post Office than its competitors to operate. Will the Secretary of State insist that each of the


competitors which creates subsidiaries follows the same rules?
The statement by the Secretary of State this afternoon is disappointing because it abandons an integrated telecommunications network. It is harmful to the development of our industrial structure, which will depend more and more upon the growth of data transmission and on the increasing use of an effective and efficient telecommunications system linked to data processing. Today's announcement will lower further the morale of Post Office engineers, who are already working under the strain of rapidly advancing technology. Through no fault of theirs, they are subject to public criticism. They feel insecure because of the technological explosion. Workers are worried that their training today will have little relevance in five or 10 years. They want job security.
Today's announcement will undermine the confidence of those workers. Their productivity record is first-rate. They have successfully reduced unit costs. Whatever has happened in the other sectors of public industry, in telecommunications manpower productivity has increased. The task is to lower unit costs in real terms by 5 per cent. It can be of no use to such an industry to undermine further the confidence of its workers.
The Secretary of State must think again before introducing his legislation, because it is harmful to the customers, staff and the economy. Post Office staff should be rewarded for their efforts and conscientiousness. They should not be punished, as it appears that they will be by the Government.

Sir Anthony Meyer: The hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Mr. Golding) spoke up bravely for his union. I have much sympathy with what he said about the consistent underinvestment in the infrastructure of telecommunications under Governments of both parties. However, it is not an argument in favour of nationalisation, because during that period the Post Office was nationalised.
I welcome Members of the Labour Party to the debate. Although not many of my hon. Friends have been present, they have consistently outnumbered

Labour Members by about 10 to 1. It is good to see Labour Members here, back from more congenial pastimes such as arguing about the various Labour Party policies. I welcome in particular Members of the Welsh Labour Party.

Mr. Anderson: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Sir A. Meyer: The hon. Gentleman missed a rousing speech by his hon. Friend the Member for Ogmore (Mr. Powell) in which he referred to the recent Conservative Party conference in Swansea. I have to tell the hon. Members for Swansea, East (Mr. Anderson) and for Aberdare (Mr. Evans), who were perhaps outside during the conference, that it was very successful. No doubt the Prime Minister would have welcomed an opportunity to have an exchange of views with the demonstrators outside, but they did not seem to be in much of a mood for an exchange.
On my way back from that conference I travelled up and down two or three of the industrial valleys of South Wales. I could not help being struck by the pace at which the old traditional industries of steel and coal are being replaced by relatively pleasant modern factories, producing a wide variety of products. As we heard from one of my hon. Friends in an intervention, no less than 47 per cent. of the advance factories being built in the United Kingdom are being built in Wales. That is no less than the urgent needs of the Principality demand.
I shall not argue whether that welcome development is a tribute to public or private enterprise. I wish to stand back from the great argument about public and private enterprise and consider the nation's long-term economic objectives. I do not believe that there is much doubt about where we want to get to. We want to reach a state of affairs in which a very small number of people in industry produce vast wealth, using the latest technological achievements—all the products of automation and the silicon chip—to the full. We recognise that that probably means that, at the end of the day, there will be a minuscule labour force working in productive industry, producing vast wealth.
It would be an environment in which innumerable small and medium-sized firms catered for the needs of a very wealthy society. Industry would also


provide the resources to finance lavish public services, and here perhaps I join Opposition Members. We should have fine schools with small pupil-teacher ratios, well-equipped hospitals in which there was no waiting for treatment; in the public sector, transport with no waiting for buses, and in the private sector shops and banks where one did not have to queue. That society may be a long way away, but that is what we should be aiming for. It would entail short hours for those in industrial employment—a short week, a short year and, indeed, a short working life.
On the other side of the coin, it would mean an end to restrictive practices, having no truck with restrictive notions such as import controls and doing without subsidies. To enable small firms to operate profitably in that environment, there would have to be cuts in taxation. Additionally, the great increase in the social services is much more likely to come about if we accept the idea that they will not necessarily be financed for ever from the public purse.
That is the mirage that we should aim for. How do we reach those sunlit uplands? We have a magnificent atlas for that purpose, which has hardly been opened since it was recently issued. It is called the Brandt report. It involves advanced countries making a massive transfer of resources to developing countries so that they can build up their requirements to finance purchases from the developed countries and so get the whole process going. Although it is a magnificent atlas, it has smudgy road maps. The difficulty is to find our way in the medium term. I believe that the way there lies in closer co-operation within the Community, although I have to be more specific than that.

Mr. Anderson: I accept what the hon. Gentleman says about the Brandt report as an atlas, but does he agree that from the reports of the Venice summit it appears that the Conservative Government have thrown that atlas decisively out of the window?

Sir A. Meyer: I might be prepared to listen to the hon. Gentleman if he could seriously claim that his party had more consistently advocated the policies set out in the Brandt report. However, the right hon. Member for Plymouth,

Devonport (Dr. Owen), who made a clever speech, merely used the occasion to attack the Government's policies. At no stage did he indicate that his party was committed to such policies. The position is quite the contrary. With every day that passes, it becomes increasingly evident that the Labour Party's policies are to apply strict import controls, in particular to the products of the developing world. I do not believe that Labour Members are well qualified to speak on the issue.

Mr. Peter Shore: The hon. Gentleman is being a little unfair. He has also been selective in the number of debates that he has attended. The House had a good debate on the Brandt report. If the hon. Gentleman was there, I apologise, but if he was I do not believe that he could possibly have made those remarks. We strongly urged the Government to make the most positive response in time for the Venice summit.

Sir A. Meyer: I was sitting on the far Benches listening attentively to every word that the right hon. Gentleman said. Although in general terms he spoke in favour of the ideas contained in the report, almost every subsequent Labour Member who spoke in that debate, as in all other debates remotely related to the subject, demonstrated that the Labour Party's primary interest is in pressing for import controls. They have not specified that those import controls should not be applied against developing countries. However, we are straying from the subject of the debate. We are supposed to be considering our attitude to nationalised industries.
Implicit in what I said earlier is the concept that there is no future for this country in trying to prop up by import controls or open-ended subsidies jobs in industries that are the industries of yesterday. We do no service to those in such industries by trying to pretend that any Government can safeguard their jobs. If one lesson has gone home to steel workers and coal miners, it is that nationalisation is no guarantee of continued employment. For a period, by subsidy Governments can attempt to prop up those jobs, but the reckoning when it comes is terrible indeed.
An Opposition Member spoke of the way in which our steel industry was being run down with an abruptness that was brutal in its consequences for those working in the industry. I agree that the abruptness is brutal. It imposes a special obligation on Governments to cushion the consequences. However, it is brutal solely because the Labour Government put off over and over again so many vital decisions within that industry. They left it in a hopelessly uncompetitive state, and it required such massive subsidies from the remainder of the economic system that it has imposed a real burden on other industries, which could be providing better, more secure jobs than those available in the steel industry.
Having said that, I must say that to whatever extent the steel industry in this country is slimmed down, Wales must remain a major element within that industry. The traditions of Wales, the equipment available and, above all, the skills of the workers give Wales an alienable right to remain a major element within the steel industry, however far the industry has to be slimmed down.

Mr. Bagier: Bearing in mind also the Conservative Party's philosophies, would the hon. Gentleman advocate the same for Consett as for Wales?

Sir A. Meyer: I listened carefully to the hon. Member for Consett (Mr. Watkins), as did the hon. Member for Sunderland, South (Mr. Bagier). Anyone who listens to the hon. Member for Consett must be struck by the strength of the case that he deploys. On one or two occasions he departed from his normal high standard of fairness. However, I am here not to argue that case but to listen to it with great sympathy. It is a shame that a town such as Consett, with such a fine record of labour relations, should have been struck in such a way. However, that is the inevitable consequence of the failure to take the right decision at the right time.
Sometimes I choose the image of a group in a lifeboat that has long ago thrown overboard all unnecessary items. We have long ago thrown overboard all luxury, comfort and shelter. If we are safely to reach port, we shall have to throw overboard some of the fuel and

supplies that we need to get us to port. That is a measure of the gravity of the short-term position with which we are faced. It is only by navigating through the immediate perilous waters, having thrown away essential items of equipment, that we stand any chance of surviving in the long run.
I do not believe that subsidies or import controls offer a way of enabling our traditional nationalised industries to survive. A much better way of enabling British industry to survive—this does not apply solely to nationalised industries—is to pursue a much more active procurement policy of buying British. We have had references recently to the PAYE computer. The argument in favour of buying a British-made computer, even if it does the job less well and is more expensive, is strong. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence, when talking about Poseidon, emphasised strongly the amount of work for British yards that would be involved in the decision that he had taken. I was glad to hear him say that.
A conspicuous example close to my constituency is the European Airbus. I should like to see the Government—this applied also to the previous Labour Government—lean heavily on British Airways and strongly encourage it to purchase the A300B rather than the medium-range American Boeing aircraft that it has been buying. That would be a far better way of providing jobs within the sector which is part nationalised and part denationalised and which so badly requires jobs to be provided. It would be a far better way of making that provision than continuing to pour thousands of millions of pounds into the steel industry.
I have to recognise that, necessary though it is to limit the vast sums that British Steel is losing by way of operating losses, the idea of obliging it to break even within so short a period as 12 months is not the best way of achieving economic operation, even in the short term. I do not believe that it will be practicable to make the deadline work. If the bosses of British Steel are required to show a paper break-even position within so short a period, there is a danger that they will adopt policies and expedients that will turn out to be more expensive in the long run.
I should hate to see the Government behave as the previous Labour Government behaved when they announced that they had set a financial limit to the requirements of British Steel. When pressed, they said "We did not mean it. It was not a limit but a target." When asked what the difference was between a limit and a target, they said "We suppose that it would have been better to call it a pious hope." I should not like to see my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Industry behaving in that soppy way. None the less, it may be advisable to give the new chairman of British Steel a little more leeway lest, in order to comply with the strict guidelines, he rushes into decisions that he may subsequently come to regret.
I congratulate the Opposition on their motion. It encapsulates pretty well everything that has gone wrong over the past few years. The Labour Party has formed the Government for 11 of the past 16 years. We see it approving the overmanning and restrictive practices that have made the publicly owned industries and public services so vulnerable to foreign competition and have led to the inescapable need for cuts in Government spending.
We have the Opposition rejecting the policies that are being applied by the Government to make the same industries competitive and for cutting services, however painfully, to a size commensurate with what our impoverished economy can afford. At the same time the Opposition blandly ignore the fact that even under a Socialist Government nationalised industries and the public services were able neither to serve the public nor to save the jobs of their workers.
I wish that I could be as wholehearted and enthusiastic about the Government's amendment. I have no quarrel with its contents. However, I should like to see some reference to the issue that I have tried to develop—namely, that industry, whether public or private, is facing an inexorable decline in the number of employees for whom it can provide employment. It is to services, public as well as private, to tourism, banking, insurance, retail trade, hospitals, schools and transport, that we must look to provide the jobs that are so desper-

ately needed, and nowhere more desperately than in the Principality of Wales.

Mr. Arthur Palmer: The hon. Member for Flint, West (Sir A. Meyer) spoke in his usual moderate and mild way. However, the hon. Gentleman wandered rather wide. I hope that he will forgive me if I do not take up his remarks.
I am annoyed with those who talk all the time, especially on the the Government Benches, about the decline of Britain and British industry. They must not go on doing it for too long or else they will be held as mainly to blame. The truth is that there is not a great deal wrong with the economy that a 3 or 4 per cent. improvement in productivity would not put right. The issue is how we achieve that improvement.
I did not hear the speech of my right hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Dr. Owen) as I was at a meeting of the Select Committee on energy. However, I heard the speech of the Secretary of State for Energy. As one would expect, the right hon. Gentleman made great play about motions to be discussed at Labour Party conferences on the further extension of nationalisation. When parties have been defeated at elections, they have to think again about their fundamental principles. They usually end up, however by returning to a much more reasonable and middle position. That is likely to happen again.
There is no real contradiction between Socialist fundamentalism and accepting the need for a mixed economy. That is what we have and we are likely to have it for a considerable time. As I say, there is no contradiction in accepting the mixed economy and at the same time believing in an ultimate Socialist future. I suggest that it is far better to believe in a Socialist future than in a capitalist past, but if we have to live in what is to be a mixed economy for a long time, that must be our true position in our own time.
I have taken a close interest in the affairs of nationalised industries since I first came to the House. I have been especially interested in the administration of these industries and their practical working. I think that I have served on all Committees on electricity


and gas supply during the time that I have been a Member of this place. I have played a part in Bills on those subjects at all stages in their passage through the House. I have never had a static conception of nationalisation. Evolution is a law of life. There is a danger that in parliamentary systems such as ours legislation can all too easily place nationalised industries in straitjackets. They are, therefore, unable to take advantage of changes in technique or of commercial exploitation. The relevant Act may narrowly confine an industry to its original aim. For example, if the electricity supply industry—the House knows of my interest in this industry and of my connections with it—had been able to acquire a share in the ownership and development of North Sea gas as a new primary fuel, it would not have been placed at such a disadvantage in relation to the gas industry, which has a monopoly by statute. That monopoly was granted by a Conservative Government.
Legislation is often hard to come by because there are limitations on parliamentary time. Things are not done when they should be done because time cannot always be found for Bills. One reason certainly why the Secretary of State has not introduced a Bill to implement, in whole or in part, the recommendations of the Plowden report for the reorganisation of the electricity supply industry—on which everyone worked so hard-has been the lack of time available for legislation. Changes that might have been beneficial to the country have been passed over in favour of more doubtful proposals, such as restrictions on trade union freedom, adverse social securty changes and so on. We have had a spate of such Bills. Most of them are reactionary in intention and they take time.
I hope that one of the first actions of a new Labour Government will be to give freedom to the nationalised industries to make changes in their powers, subject only to ministerial approval. They should be allowed to make changes by means of regulations, approved by the House. They should not have to wait for new legislation to be introduced. The aim would be to

allow nationalised industries to diversify and, where commercially attractive, to expand their business into new fields, as the private sector does. Of course, that contradicts the point of view held by the Minister of Transport. He has told us that the profitable sections of the railway industry will be hived off and sold to private enterprise in order to get back cash. We should instead allow the railways to expand further into profitable areas, in order to find the revenue that will help them.
Both sides of the House appear to accept the need for a mixed economy. If they do not do so in theory, they at least accept that need in practice. There is no reason why a Conservative Government should reject such a view. At one time, Conservative Governments did not reject it. In the late 1950s, a Conservative Government enacted a measure that set up the centralised CEGB within the existing nationalisation framework. They gave that body the right to manufacture with ministerial approval. That was a sensible and pragmatic decision. One would not get such a decision from the present Conservative Administration. The aim of that 1950s legislation was to strengthen the nationalised industry by means of new forms of organisation. For that reason, the changes were not opposed by the then Labour Opposition.
But what have we now? Ministers and their supporters show open hostility not only to the merits of new public enterprise but to the existing nationalised industries. Trade unions in the nationalised industries firmly believe that to be the case. If one talks privately to the management of nationalised industries, one finds that it takes the same view. Given that there is a mixed economy that is part public and part private, why does the Conservative Party continue the long-running and old-fashioned debate of private enterprise versus nationalisation?
Last week I was in France on behalf of the Select Committee on energy. We spoke to French economists and administrators, to French industrialists involved in its nationalised industries and to French Ministers. The span of nationalisation in France is not dissimilar to that found in Britain. However, the


French have never known such arguments as we have. That is a particularly British form of argument. Perhaps it is a survival from Victorian days, when we went further towards a pure free enterprise system than any other country in Europe. The French are not bothered about where the capital comes from, as long as it earns a proper return. The sooner, I suggest, that we get closer to that pragmatic French view, the better.
Britain's nationalised industries have done a fine job for the country. One must examine their finances carefully. The hon. Member for Gillingham (Sir F. Burden) spoke as if all the nationalised industries made losses. The coal industry, the transport industry and the railways have had difficulties, because new techniques have overtaken them. However, the electricity supply industry did not go into the red after it had been nationalised, until Conservative interventionists told the industry that it must hold its prices constant. Government subsidisation then began. The electricity industry did not ask for that, nor did the trade unions.
If one considers how much capital the majority of nationalised industries obtain from their own resources, one must conclude that by international standards their productivity and efficiency are as good as those of the large-scale private companies, such as ICI and Shell. At present, the nationalised industries are being restricted. That restraint applies to productive and up-to-date nationalised industries just as it applies to the coal industry and to the railway industry, where historical and technical changes have created difficulties for them in all countries.
If nationalised industries experience problems of expansion, it is because the Government have fixed artificial cash limits on investment. I cannot understand why productive nationalised industries which make commercially good investments should be subject to cash limits. It is said that it is good for ICI, Courtaulds and other companies to put money into new chemical plants, since that will benefit the country and bring a return. However, if the CEGB invests in new nuclear power stations as future technology, it is subject to artificial restraint from Governments.
I know that Labour and Conservative Governments have equally continued that practice, but it is about time that it was stopped. There should be a differentiation between productive investment, whatever the system of ownership, and expenditure, which normally comes out of taxation revenues. That would improve the look of the Government's own accounts, but apart from that it would be a good thing to do in itself.
I hold a view which many of my hon. Friends may not hold. I believe that intervention by Ministers in the affairs of the nationalised industries should be kept to a minimum. I believe that those industries should be commercially viable and be allowed to work in an economy which is reasonably free. Indeed, there is no real contradiction between socialised enterprises and the market economy. Some of the countries east of the Iron Curtain are moving fast in that direction anyhow.
However, what does the Secretary of State for Energy now propose to do with regard to electricity supply? It is Government interventionism run mad. Instead of carrying through the proposals that have been recommended to successive Governments by the Plowden committee and those associated with it, the Minister himself will, apparently for the future, to a great extent direct the affairs of the electricity supply industry.
I have in front of me a copy of Hansard for 15 July. It contains a long statement, which, incidentally, was not made from the Dispatch Box, as it should have been so that the right hon. Gentleman could have been questioned. It was done in the sly manner of slipping in an inspired written question almost at the end of the day. The statement took up columns of Hansard. It says that the right hon. Gentleman will not now give a new shape to the electricity supply industry so that it can look after its own affairs.
I do not want to be too long, but I should like to give one or two quotations. The right hon. Gentleman said:
I have been assured by the council"—
that is, the Electricity Council—
and individual electricity boards of their commitment to my policy"—
This is the party which believes in nonintervention. He continued:


I will seek specific comments from the council before approving capital programmes".
He went on:
the council will advise me on the further development of physical, technical and financial measures of performance by the boards". —[Official Report, 15 July 1980; Vol. 988, c. 447.]
He will also decide "whether changes are desirable" and will expect the conclusions to be reported to him. That is interventionism run mad. It is the kind of thing that I fear from this Government. There may be Socialist interventionists, but there is nothing so chaotic as a Tory interventionist.
I should like to comment on a sentence which was uttered by the Secretary of State earlier this afternoon. It seemed to slip out. As I have said, I am suspicious of the way in which he goes about our affairs. He said, I think, that he would end the existing monopoly of the CEGB with regard to industrial supplies. There is no real monopoly at present. I think that about 20 per cent. of electricity in this country used by industry is generated privately. That has been the case ever since nationalisation, for the simple reason that there are private generating plants on industrial estates or with large concentrations of industry, such as one gets at ICI at Wilton in North Yorkshire. I am familiar with that area. It has an industrial power station which supplies its own needs and also links in with the national grid. Therefore, there is nothing new in using private enterprise on private land for electricity supplies.
However, if that so called monopoly is to be broken, it means further changes. The House has a right to know whether the right hon. Gentleman is proposing that private electricity concerns will be given the right to break up the public highways in order to lay down duplicate mains to the public suppliers. If that is to be the case, I should point out that long before nationalisation electricity undertakings, from the 1882 Act onwards, always had a territorial monoply. That is the sensible way of dividing responsibility when large-scale capital expenditure is involved. Again, I feel that the Secretary of State is getting just too devious for words. In future, he must be much franker with the House. Those who are responsible for public

electricity supplies will be concerned about this proposal and will rightly want to know what it means.
If new generating stations are to be erected privately, what about the fuel that will be employed? Will that come under control? There is a choice of fuel. It could be nuclear, coal or oil, although at present it would not be sensible to use oil. What about the strategic placing of these power stations in relation to the national grid? Great losses in the uses of energy can be caused if a power station is built just anywhere to suit a private developer and if within two or three miles there is a publicly-owned power station which could easily carry the load.
If that is to occur, we shall not just hit at the electricity nationalisation Acts of 1947 and 1957 but we shall hit at the proposals brought forward by the Baldwin Government in 1926, which set up the unified electricity grid. I ask Ministers to think a little about what they are doing. They should not too easily cast aside the wisdom of those who have gone before them.

Mr. Tom Benyon: I intend to stick—I hope rigidly—to the promise that I gave you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, not to take more than 10 minutes. I am comforted by the thought that those who speak twice as long may catch your eye only half as often.
I should like to confine my remarks to the motor industry. I am sure that my constituents will receive comfort from the entire House when I point out that about 800 of them recently lost their jobs as a result of the closure of MG in Abingdon. In the last two weeks, we have seen the death of a unique car, which only a year ago celebrated its golden jubilee and is now in its fifty-first year. How hard it is to tell the work force, which has been loyal to British Leyland for so long and has had such a good strike record and tradition of excellence and of handing down responsibility for making these cars from father to son.
The irony is that if they had not been such good workmen and had such a reputation for high quality, the deal that was mooted between British Leyland and Aston Martin could not even have been thought of. It would certainly not have got off the ground as far as it did. It


is a tragedy that the deal, worked at so hard by Alan Curtis of Aston Martin and supported by Michael Edwardes of British Leyland, failed to come to pass.
The reasons why the deal did not come to pass are complex. It is not as simple as to say that the city institutions or the Government have not done what they should have done. The first reason is that after the 1968 merger BMC and Leyland decided to put money into the TR range of sports cars. Secondly, the MG was regarded as so special a car that various parts—the gearbox to name but one—were unique and consequently could not be used in other British Leyland cars. Thirdly, the MG deal, like so much of the British motor industry, was caught badly by the high value of the pound. Next came the crippling interest rates, and £ 20 million was a great deal of money for Alan Curtis to raise. The world recession finally scotched the deal. The MG work force and car cannot insulate themselves from world conditions. Today in the Financial Times I see that tragically another 6,000 British Leyland workers, many of whom work on the TR range, are also on part time.
It is not the job of Members of Parliament to mislead their constituents into believing that there are easy solutions to their problems. It is no service to my constituents to tell them that they can be insulated from the world recession or that we can spend our way out. Nor is it a proper service to tell them that they can build an economic future for themselves out of a magnificent car which, for reasons beyond their control, has become a loss-maker.
I am pleased that a faint glimmer of silver in a very black cloud for the Abingdon work force is that, at the initiative of British Leyland, the management of that company, along with the town council, the district council and the trade unions, which have been enthusiastic about this idea, are to examine the Abingdon site with a view not to selling it off as a job lot but to seeing whether it can be divided into 1,000 to 2,000 units for other businesses in that area. I hope that this idea will bear fruit and will grow from the tragedy of the closure of the MG works. However bleak the present may look, inventiveness and resilience have not been suspended in Abingdon. I hope that this idea will shortly be examined by the

authorities in Abingdon and the management of Leyland.
During the past ½ to 2 years Michael Edwardes has attempted to explain to the Leyland work force the problems that he and they as a company face in trying to sell cars at a time of world recession. Leyland's problems are manifold. Much of the message that Michael Edwardes has attempted to put across has been misunderstood—possibly wilfully in many instances, but perhaps not. He finds, as I am sure that many of those who head our large concerns find, that the difficulty of communication is extreme.
We are told "The two sides of British industry"—can there be a more arid phrase?—"met this afternoon." The gulf may be too wide. In trying to explain the problems facing his troubled company, Michael Edwardes appears to be calling across a chasm of distrust. The message never seems to reach the other side; it just echoes back to him. The message must be "If you cannot sell it you cannot go on making it. If there is no productivity, there can be no real pay increases. Unless unit labour costs and productivity are competitive, we export jobs, not goods."
I should like to hark back to an excellent speech made last week by my hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton (Mr. Forman). He said that the problem facing the Government, too, was that of communication—trying to bridge the gap of misunderstanding between the Government and the people about economic problems, realism on pay, production, inflation and the economy.
What are the problems we face? I should like the Government to implement one of our many manifesto statements: to institute a wider economic forum for explaining some of these problems to the people. It would help to build a bridge across the chasm of public misunderstanding. I should like that wider forum to be set up without delay.
There are some areas where the Government can positively help Leyland. An evil godmother was at the birth of British Leyland in 1968. She decided, instead of giving three or four blessings to the newborn babe that it should be plagued with the curses of strikes and management and union problems. More recently the plagues have come thicker and faster.
One plague is a high pound and a low yen. Since 1977 the pound's differential has reached 50 per cent. with the yen, 25 per cent. with the deutschemark, 20 per cent. with the French franc and 25 per cent. with the lira. The next plague would be a poor reputation on grounds of quality and delivery. Next would be the plague of the British disease of knocking. We are good at knocking this country and we have been knocking BL for too long. Lastly, we would be plagued, at a time when the company is teetering on the brink of survival or non-survival, with a world recession.
Times have now changed. Leyland has some new models and has instituted a programme of quality control on a par with anything on the Continent. The company has rationalised to a major extent. It is determined to turn itself round and get moving again. There is a sense of crisis not only in management but in the work force. Reality walks abroad at British Leyland now, but it is still in a crisis and it is teetering on the brink.
In the past, like an ageing heavyweight fighter knocked cold in many bouts—mainly by Japanese, Spanish and Eastern bloc contenders—Leyland had become a bit of a joke. But that fighter now has a new manager, a great deal of experience, training and preparation and a new style. It has lost a lot of weight, slimming down from a heavyweight to a light heavyweight, and it does not mind a fair contest in the ring, but it would like some help from its backers. It does not wish to go into the ring with one or even two hands tied behind its back.
The Government have given great help in many areas, but there are a few areas in which they should consider helping more. British Leyland is one of the largest employers in the country and the Government are a major shareholder, so all the help that they can give that company at this time must be welcome and wise.
Japan exports to the European Community 606,000 cars—that was the number registered in 1979—and the European Community exports to Japan 38,000 cars. In the first six months of 1980 Japan increased its EEC market share to 8 per cent. compared with 6 per cent. in 1979, yet unemployment is only

2 per cent. in Japan, while it is 8 per cent. and, tragically, rising in this country.
Why is this happening? First, for reasons beyond anyone's control, the yen has appreciated by about 20 per cent. in the past 18 months. It is difficult to sell cars in Japan, because the technical regulations are intense and the distribution system is hard to bust and is pretty well tied up.
The Government understand the Spanish situation, which borders on the intolerable. Spanish exports of cars to the EEC in 1979 totalled 50,000, while Spain's imports were only 300, because there is a tariff of 35-1 per cent. against imports into Spain, while it suffers only 4-4 per cent. in return. I know that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Trade is aware of that matter and I ask him to consider it carefully to see what can be done to put it right as soon as possible.
The position in Eastern Europe is also intolerable. Those countries exported—let us call it dumped—39,000 cars to the EEC in 1979 and took only 400 cars in return. As far as I can see, there were no reciprocal sales. The result is that 6,000 British Leyland jobs have been given to Communist countries and our distributors face considerable problems. I am, of course, assuming that all those cars would be replaced by BL cars, which would not be the case, because we should have to fight hard against competition from France, Germany and elsewhere. Nevertheless, it is intolerable to have so many Eastern European cars imported into this country.
I am not asking for import controls. We should not follow the French in trying to find new ways of bending the rules but rather should press vigorously for the application of existing rules. It is intolerable that we appear to be the only country playing cricket by the rules. Our EEC compatriots will nick the wicket, bails and ball any day.
We have seen many examples of that. The French attitude towards us and the Common Market generally borders on the contemptuous. They have a history of bending the rules over for example, VAT on racehorses and the performance on lamb imports. The French have driven their foreign-made coach and


horses through the Treaty of Rome so often that they make it look like the route nationale.
The French make our cars conform to their own type approval systems and to EEC directives, but inevitably we do not do the same. I ask the Government to support the European Commission in opening discussions urgently to limit imports of Japanese cars into Europe and the EEC. I also ask them to support, if necessary, voluntary restraint by the Japanese in the United Kingdom, which has already been agreed by the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders and the Japanese Auto Manufacturers Association, and to ensure that the Ministry of Transport obtains assurances that our EEC colleagues will accept our cars without the imposition of extra national type approval regulations, as we accept imported cars from those countries in the EEC.
I am not asking for protection from fair competition. Far from it. I ask that we stop playing our game of manufacturing cars when the players on the other side are using loaded dice.

Mr. Gordon A. T. Bagier: I hope that the hon. Member for Abingdon (Mr. Benyon) will forgive me if I do not follow his comments too closely. I do not have a car industry in my constituency, but I sympathise with those who are being made unemployed in that industry. No one deplores the disappearance of MG more than those of us who are car lovers.
The Government's amendment to the Opposition motion includes the words:
restoring a proper balance between the state sector and private enterprise".
What does that mean? Where can we find evidence of what it means? We do not have to look far. The Secretary of State for Energy this afternoon made no attempt to reply to any of the allegations made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Dr. Owen). Indeed, the Secretary of State started to give us a history lesson from 1945. Perhaps I shall be forgiven, therefore, if I look back to try to discover the philosophy of the Secretary of State and his friends.
The Conservative Government of 1953 denationalised the road haulage

system. They did not denationalise the railway system and, as far as I am aware, the present Government have no plans to denationalise the railway system. The 1953 Government had a look round and asked "What are the most profitable sections of the public sector that we can get rid of?" They sold the road haulage sector at knock-down prices.
The Opposition of the day undertook that road haulage would be taken back into public ownership without compensation. Unfortunately, it was 1964 before a Labour Government were returned and at that time circumstances were such that it was impossible to implement that pledge.
The next practical example of what is meant by the "balance" referred to in the amendment came in 1970 when the then Conservative Government sold a couple of plums from the public sector. Thomas Cook was gathered up by the private sector. It was obviously a company with great growth potential and it was taken out of the public sector and handed over to the Government's pals for nothing but doctrinaire reasons.
The Carlisle State brewery was also sold. Those of us who were in the House at the time remember the gallant fight put up by my hon. Friend the Member for Carlisle (Mr. Lewis), who is a leader of the temperance movement and who believes strongly in public ownership. That brewery was smashed up for doctrinaire reasons and handed over to the Government's pals at giveaway prices.
We used to have two largely cooperative brewing businesses in the Northern region—the Federation brewery in the North-East and the Carlisle State brewery. It was no accident that that was where one could buy the cheapest pint. That is no longer so in Carlisle, but it is still true in the North-East, because the co-operative brewery continues there.
That is the background against which we must judge the Government's philosophy. Conservative Members will no doubt claim that the Government's current proposals for the public sector were included in their manifesto. They have claimed that all their misdeeds of the past year were included in the manifesto.
There is, however, a much more menacing significance about their proposals for the public sector. They will have a drastic effect on security, jobs and the long-term promotion prospects of those in the public sector. I declare my interest. I worked for 22 years in the nationalised railway industry and I am sponsored by the National Union of Railwaymen.
My hon. Friends have already referred to the proposals for the postal services and telecommunications. I should like to deal with the proposal for British Rail, and I am glad that the Minister of Transport is to reply to the debate.
I hope that the Minister will refute what one of his hon. Friends said that the structure proposed for the privatisation of the profitable sections of British Rail has the wholehearted support of Sir Peter Parker. My information is very different. It is that under the Government's original privatisation proposals there was no question of British Rail holding 100 per cent. of the holding company's shares. There has been a significant shift in the Government's approach in the past few months. Sir Peter Parker has welcomed it, because he is across a barrel in many ways. He runs a business in which the different parts are complementary. The railways side is complementary to hotels, to Sealink and to the property that British Rail owns. Everything interlocks.
Therefore, when proposals for finding cash for British Rail are made, Sir Peter is across a barrel. If the Government say that the cash limits must be held at a certain level, he often faces the choice of putting a coat of paint on the North British Hotel in Glasgow or having an extra couple of miles of long-welded track. The capital that he requires to run his main enterprise, British Rail, is denied him from Government sources. He has a tremendous problem.
If we are to take away from British Rail an income of about £ 40 million a year from the property services, hotel services and the like, how will that assist British Rail's main function? Will the Minister explain to many of his hon. Friends who live in the commuter belt down to the South Coast whether it will affect their fares structure? The balance will have to be found. Sir Peter Parker

cannot give the money away and say that it is of no significance. He has to find it within the budget requirements of his own business. If that money is taken away from the income, the general money flow of British Rail's earnings, the Government must explain how that will help it do the job.
Some hon. Members—I say "some", because most are sensible—criticise British Rail, and indirectly the staff, for being overmanned and so on. I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman does not say that, but I see that the hon. Member for Enfield, North (Mr. Eggar) is nodding agreement with the allegation of overmanning. During the 16 years that I have been a Member, the British Rail staff has been dramatically reduced, with full agreement between unions and management.
The part of the industry with which I was connected—signalling—has been revolutionised. Hundreds of signalmen have agreed in consultation, because of the modernisation of the system, that their jobs shall be disposed of. All that has been done with co-operation and the spirit of maintaining a business, even throughout the difficult era of Dr. Beech-ing and the then Tory Government's policy of massively slashing lines. It was said to be done to make the system profitable, but that did not happen. What happened was what we warned would happen—that if one cuts the branches off the tree, the trunk will wither.
That is what worries those who are left in the industry. Sir Peter Parker said at the annual conference of the National Union of Railwaymen a fortnight ago, when he referred to his discussions with the Minister of Transport:
There is common ground in these consultations, although each interest has a different approach to it. What I hope for from the Board's viewpoint is roughly this: that opportunities must be pursued to enable the railway subsidiary activities to expand and develop in open competition with the public sector.
That is a very important request. I hope that the Minister will take it on board, because most of the nationalised industries are hamstrung in open competition with the private sector.
Sir Peter said:
If there is to be, in the light of government policy, the introduction of private capital, then the Board's initiative in the development of collaborations can be crucial.


In other words, Sir Peter was speaking about what would happen if the various sectors were to take in private capital and the board's holding went below 51 per cent. Most of my hon. Friends and certainly my trade union friends will fight to maintain 51 per cent. if possible. I hope that the Minister will ensure that the British Rail participation and shareholding in each subsidiary will be sufficient for it to have overall management control. It is crucial to the future of the railway's working.
It is not possible to run a Sealink system without the co-operation of British Rail. Everyone can see the reality of that. The work must be done in co-operation. There can be an argument about hotels, but British Rail is in the business of holidays and passengers. That is an integral part of its business.
In property, I see the money-grubbing fingers getting itchy. That is where the big profits are. That is the section that everyone is waiting to get his hands on. I hope to hear, though I very much doubt that I shall, an indication that the profits from the property side will be used to maintain the main trunk of British Rail.

Mr. Tim Eggar: Would the hon. Gentleman care to reflect on the performance of British Rail hotels compared with, over the past 15 years, the performance of Trust Houses Forte or Grand Metropolitan?

Mr. Bagier: Sir Peter Parker told the NUR conference and a meeting of hon. Members not long ago that, given the money, British Rail's hotels could be extremely successful, but starved of capital they could not; and they have been starved of it. The hon. Gentleman may well laugh, but British Rail's big success story in hotels because it concentrated all its hotel section capital on it, is the Caledonian hotel, which is now one of Britain's star hotels. The hon. Gentleman cannot laugh that off.

The Minister of Transport (Mr. Norman Fowler): I think that the hon. Gentleman would be fair enough to acknowledge that British Rail hotels have been starved of resources not only for the past 15 months but for the past 25 years. The present Government are trying to do something about it.

Mr. Bagier: I agree with the right hon. Gentleman about the hotels being starved

of capital. I do not deny that. Unfortunately, the one option not open to British Rail is standstill; if it stands still, it will fall down. That is why in many ways I can understand Sir Peter Parker welcoming some opportunity of investment. However, I should like from the right hon. Gentleman an undertaking that if private enterprise goes into the hotel section British Rail will maintain a controlling interest. I suspect that it will not. I suspect that there will often be a sell-off inslead of an investment prospect.
I turn to an important constituency matter. There has not yet been an announcement about the shipbuilding industry, though we are warned that there will be a statement in the coming week. If, as is rumoured, the naval sections of shipbuilding are to be hived off from British Shipbuilders, that will crucify the merchant ship building section of the industry. We can say "Goodbye" to it for good. Its present structure is so cross-subsidised that one section could not survive without the other. That is the considered opinion of the whole British Shipbuilders board and of the Confederation of Shipbuilding and Engineering Unions.

Mr. Robert C. Brown: No doubt the Government will claim that they had a mandate from the British people for such a statement. Does my hon. Friend agree that no one—not even the most diehard Tory—voted for persisting with a policy that would make sure that we did not have a British merchant ship building capacity in the future?

Mr. Bagier: I am most grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne, West (Mr. Brown). As he well knows, as a Member representing a shipbuilding town, the effect on Swan Hunter, for example, would be disastrous, because Swan Hunter is a mixed yard. It is a combination of five yards which do naval work as well as ordinary merchant shipping work. To separate it would kill it.
I warn the Government that there is absolutely unified condemnation of any proposal of this nature. It will be fought tooth and nail in this House and outside. If the Government have any fond ideas about appealing to the shipyard workers who work in the naval yards to separate from their colleagues in the merchant navy yards, they are living in


a fool's paradise, because that will not happen.
British Shipbuilders deserves a first-call class pat on the back for its performance since vesting day. It has done this at a time of worldwide recession in shipbuilding. Even the Japanese have had to halve their capacity. Less than 10 months ago, British Shipbuilders said that in order to remain viable it needed 45 ships. There were horse laughs from Conservative Members and from people elsewhere. Yet British Shipbuilders has achieved its objective in nine months. It has done it because its representatives stumped the world to get the business. There has been Government aid as well; the intervention fund has been useful.
Here we have a success story. British Shipbuilders has a sales force that can go out to China and to any country in the world. It can say "What do you want—a merchant ship, a corvette or a submarine? You name it and we can do it, because we have a centralised sales force and we control the work."
That is the important factor. If that centralised sales force is broken up, it will be a crying shame and a great blow to the shipbuilding industry in Britain.
I want to mention one of the successful firms, Austin and Pickersgill. I say here what I have said outside to Mr. Kimber, the managing director, who frequently says that shipbuilding should be denationalised. He is the only person I know in management who says that, from the chairman of British Shipbuilders down. Mr. Kimber, of all people, should remember what happened to Austin and Pickersgill. It was taken into public ownership because of the crash of Court Line. It was part of a holiday firm empire, and because that part of the business fell down Austin and Pickersgill almost went to the wall.
It would have gone into the hands of the receiver if some of us had not appealed to my right hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, South-East (Mr. Benn), who helped to put through a measure taking Austin and Pickersgill into public ownership as a going concern. The Government of the day could have got Austin and Pickersgill at a knockdown price had they wished, but they did not do that. If it had gone into the hands of the receiver, every order on its books

would have been lost. The work force at Austin and Pickersgill remember this, and so do the work force on the Wear. They will have no truck with any plans of the Government for denationalisation.
I have covered two industries in which I have an interest. I hope that the Government will take note of what has been said and that we shall have a reply from the Minister that is more detailed than the response from the Secretary of State for Energy to my right hon. Friend the Member for Devonport.

Mr. Iain Mills: There is no doubt that in modern, sophisticated, industrialised countries there is a need for a mixed economy. It is difficult to imagine any other economic system that would allow at the same time the growth of the national product and a constant increase in disposable income and in life style and life standards.
It is perhaps a signal thought tonight that many of the problems that we are experiencing in the macro-economics of this country are influenced by our public expenditure requirements, which in turn are influenced by the size of our public sector, which again in turn is influenced by the number and the amount of subsidies needed to keep the nationalised industries afloat. Therefore, the amendment, which seeks to restore a proper balance between the State sector and private enterprise, is probably the most important part of the whole debate.
It would be useful to lay a few myths about nationalised industries. Having said that, I believe that we need a mixed economy, and I hope that hon. Members will allow me to look at some aspects of it. Nationalised industries seem inevitably to develop management structures which are complex, developing a cyclicly restrictive bureaucracy, which in the end is incapable of responding to outside stimuli and increasingly responds in a never-ending cycle of cost against price to its own internal problems.
I can think of very few areas in which it could be said that the management structures within nationalised industries have developed in the way in which most of us on each side of the House believe to be necessary in a highly competitive world, in which they need highly responsive customer-angled management, trade union officials and employees.
The responsiveness of organisations to outside influences and to the needs of their customers in terms of quality, delivery and supply must be the critical factor for any organisation, such as the coal industry, which is an extractive industry. Nationalised industries, because of this bureaucratic management structure, find it difficult to respond to innovation, to identify innovation or to see how innovation is needed.
There are notable examples which prove that nationalised industries can do it. Perhaps the hon. Member for Sunderland, South (Mr. Bagier), who has just spoken, will be pleased if I say that I am most impressed with British Rail's record of innovation. It is sad that the lack of funds within that organisation—because it is nationalised and because we are short of money—prevents it from capitalising on some of its advance concepts, particularly in export markets. I hope to be able to touch later on some ways in which the sale of British Rail subsidies may help to do just that.
Nationalised industries also find it difficult to demonstrate effectiveness in terms of cost and the accountability that comes absolutely from having to respond to the shareholder and private enterprise system within capitalism. The two systems diverge, and however keen, well-managed and good the workpeople may be, it is difficult to see how a nationalised industry can in the end achieve anything like the same rate of success as private enterprise in responding to cost pressures, efficiency pressures and customer pressures.
That is why I welcomed recently a number of changes in nationalised industries brought about by the Government's policies. I shall be grateful if my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Energy will mention this to my right hon. Friend the Minister of Transport, who has made a particularly well-marked, well-judged and effective contribution towards correcting the balance between private and public enterprise.
It was with full co-operation of the chairman of the board of the National Freight Corporation that the Transport Bill—now the Transport Act—allowed the Minister powers to create a new corporation from the NFC, a statutory corporation established under the Transport Act 1968. Its objectives were to take over and manage public sector road transport

companies that were hitherto in the ownership of a British holding company,—National Carriers Limited and Freight-liners, which reverted later to British Rail. Seeing such familiar names as British Road Services and Pickfords returning to the private sector, with the co-operation of those who manage it, seems to Conservative Members to be an excellent achievement. The Government's intention is to achieve a substantial private investment in the NFC.
I em phasise to Labour Members that in this respect we are not talking about asset stripping. We are talking about restoring to the public the funds which are rightfully theirs. Hon. Members may laugh. Perhaps they will not laugh so much when we ask them how otherwise British Rail is to find the capital to electrify lines. How can it be done other than through private interest?
When the National Freight Corporation is finally floated on the market, the public and the nation will benefit. Indeed, this example, now embodied in the Transport Act, could be extended elsewhere with considerable merit.

Mr. Ioan Evans: The hon. Member for Meriden (Mr. Mills) compares the public sector with the private sector. British Leyland failed under private enterprise, and it has now been taken into public ownership, where it is succeeding. However, it is having to compete with Renault, a publicy owned company. Is it the intention of the Government to return British Leyland to the private sector to compete with a company such as Renault, which is more successful because it has been publicly owned for longer?

Mr. Mills: I always appreciate the sincerity of the hon. Gentleman, but at the beginning of my discourse I made clear that I believe in a balance between public and private enterprise. There is no doubt in my mind that the vehicle industry across Europe involves substantial amounts of public ownership and public funds—not only Renault, which is largely owned by the French Government, but Volkswagen in Germany, and others. The Government recognise that fact and they do not look for a 100 per cent. private enterprise economy. We do not think that that is possible, and we shall not denationalise every single concern. However, we must


look for opportunities whereby those who work within nationalised enterprises and those who benefit from their services will benefit from a return to private enterprise.
The sale of British Rail subsidiaries will be of enormous benefit to those who work within them. Just as the chairman and board of the National Freight Corporation welcomed its denationalisation because of the availability to them of private funds to allow them to develop their enterprises and to grow, denationalisation must be welcomed by those who manage the subsidiaries of British Rail, in that they, too, now have an equal chance with their competitors of access to funds to allow them to grow. It is a tragedy that the growth of British Transport Hotels, Sealink and other parts of British Rail has not been possible because of lack of funds.
I repeat the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Faversham (Mr. Moate), who said that British Transport Hotels had built one hotel since the war and had lost £ 328,000 on a turnover of £ 38 million. That is a tragedy for the employees and the trade union officials. Should not they have the chance to see growth and new capital brought in, and to see the keen cutting edge of competition operating in their favour? My hon. Friend said that there are some excellent hotels in the group. Why should they not have access to private funds to allow them to achieve a successful commercial enterprise that will not only do well but will give a better guarantee of jobs? Are Labour Members saying that they will be happy with a policy that will lessen security and lessen opportunities for new jobs, which we badly need now?
If the track record in creating profits has been poor in the past, is it not right, if it is risky, for private enterprise to carry the risk? Why should it be risked out of the public purse? Is it not the job of British Rail to provide rail transport? Is it the job of British Rail to manage property, to build hovercraft or to run the Gleneagles hotel? The real job of those who are interested in transport is to improve rail services. If the funds that result from the privatisation of British Rail subsidiaries will allow more miles to be electrified, saving the nation energy and giving the passen-

gers better comfort, we shall have done an excellent job.
In announcing the sale of British Rail subsidiary companies, my right hon. Friend the Minister of Transport said that he recognises that these subsidiary enterprises would not secure essential commercial freedom unless private capital was attracted in sufficient volume, thus maximising the opportunities for profitable services. We should not stop at the National Freight Corporation and British Rail—

Mr. Anderson: Where, in all the proposals for the subsidiaries, is there a promise of one extra penny for electrification of main lines?
Mr. Mills: If the hon. Gentleman reads the Minister's statement, he will realise that the moneys from the sale of these enterprises will be considered by British Rail. The Minister did not say that the money would be used for electrification, but if the proceeds of the sales go to British Rail it is up to the chairman of British Rail and his staff to decide how best to use them, and I know that one of their priorities is the electrification of lines.
I congratulate the Minister on his success, in the Transport Act, of releasing the forces of competition in British busways. I was horrified to read in my local newspaper that Midland Red, the Midlands subsidiary of the National Bus Company, was looking at 39 local services with a view to a package of economy measures. The introduction of private bus services is not only a good idea but will be essential if many of my constituents who live in rural areas are not to be marooned because of a lack of public bus services caused by the inevitable year by year decrease in services presented annually with increased fares, reduced services and fewer stops. The sooner that all those involved at executive level in the National Bus Company and in the trade unions who have criticised some aspects of this freeing of competition recognise that if we maintain the status quo there will be no status and no quo, the better. There will be fewer bus services. I urge my right hon. Friend to seek further opportunities to introduce better services through more encouragement of private bus services.
The same applies to the British Transport Docks Board. There is a further


opportunity, on which my hon. Friend the Member for Faversham has already commented, and I urge my right hon. Friend the Minister to look at an organisation which operates 18 ports in Great Britain and handles over 20 per cent. of the ports' traffic. It is an ideal candidate for the introduction of private capital. I am not talking about asset stripping. I am talking about opportunity given to people who can see opportunities and attract the funds.
I also congratulate my right hon. Friend the Minister on the sale of motorway service areas and on the reduction of bureaucratic complexity in the road construction units, and on the transfer of many of the sub-units to private contractors. I also urge him to consider whether some of the funds and activities of the Transport and Road Research Laboratory can be moved from the public sector to private organisations. I know that the Minister is good at striking blows for the freedom of private enterprise and I am sure that he can see opportunities in that organisation.
It was encouraging to note that the Government have now grasped the realities of encouraging those who work in the coal industry. Labour Members have mentioned the coal industry. The morale of the miners in the Midlands must have been improved by the Government's statement of intent. One has only to look back at the miles of railway lines closed in the past 10 or 15 years—closures in which Labour Governments played a major part—and at the horrifying number of pit closures that happened directly under Labour Governments, to see that however tight the targets of the National Coal Board, the demonstration of skill, knowledge and belief in coal, backed up with enormous sums, is most encouraging. It is in terms of these enormous sums that we must grasp the hard realities.
One Labour Member said that he had spent 22 years in a nationalised industry. I spent 18 years in private enterprise. If only some of those companies for which I worked, which had close connections with the motor car industry, had had access to the huge sums referred to by Labour Members in respect of the nationalised industries, life would have been magnificent. However, private enterprise companies have to work hard. Their philosophy is a good example to

follow—survival, gain, and growth through the use of private funds and through the identification of the right risks to take. Risks, opportunity and innovation often go together. I believe that we can, through further transfers from public to private sector operation, secure not only a better balance between public and private sectors but more security for the employees and better services for the customer.

Mr. D. N. Campbell-Savours: The hon. Member for Meriden (Mr. Mills) referred to the possibility of our exporting rail products. A company in my constituency is in the forefront of such export trade. I spent this morning with Mr. Sullivan, who is an administrator for the federal railroad in the United States. He came to my constituency to see the new rail bus, a vehicle that has been produced by British Leyland at the Leyland National plant. It is hoped to export the vehicle throughout the world. Having sent a prototype already to America, we look forward to that product being sold throughout the United States.
Mr. Sullivan said this morning:
What is more exciting is the potential this vehicle has for meeting the transportation needs of other smaller population centres throughout the United States. We have already been approached by the officials of several States DOTs, who expressed interest in operating Rail Bus transportation in their states.
That is a success story, but there are other stories which are not so successful.
I want to consider tonight the effects of reductions in public expenditure on the publicly owned industries, particularly in the Northern region constituencies, and how that affects the creation of new jobs. All the constituencies in the region are littered with the dereliction of closed factories. The region is a depressing sight. In every town and community closed factories and long queues of unemployed only add to that depressed atmosphere.
We have to attempt to measure this decline in industry. To this end I quote a letter that was sent to the Secretary of State for Energy by Norweb, the electricity supply authority of the North-West. The letter is an adequate and eective indicator and yardstick of what is happening in the region. It gives


the consumption of energy, and that portrays the measure of the problem. The letter states:
When Norman Lamont visited us in April we emphasised to him the low economic growth of the north west of England… The Board asked me to bring this situation to your attention"—
that is, to the Secretary of State for Energy—
because electricity sales are a good indicator of the industrial vitality of an area… In 1955, 14.3 per cent. of electricity sold to industry in England and Wales was to Norweb consumers. By 1980 this percentage had fallen to 9.8 per cent. in a continuous downward trend. Total sales to industrial consumers were 7,885 million units in 1979-80, which was only marginally higher than the 7,835 million units achieved in 1970-71. During the same period the other 11 Electricity Boards have increased sales from 62,948 million to 72,343 million units. It is therefore not just a question of a lower share of a growing market, but a position of stagnation which is very worrying to everyone involved in industry in the northwest. My Board certainly share this concern at the deterioration over many years in the economic standing of the north-west, and feel that it would be helpful to have our views conveyed to the Government
Why is this reduction in activity taking place? I can produce as evidence yet another letter sent by another industry—the BSC, Cumbria—to many of its customers and the local press and generally circulated to a number of interested bodies. This letter draws attention to a factor which is severely prejudicing the position of the British Steel Corporation and its ability to sell products at the right price in the world market. The letter says:
BSC Cumbria, like all manufacturers within the public or private sector, are doing all possible to both cut their own internal costs and to absorb external price increases in order to continue to live in an increasingly price competitive world. This world is one in which price increases are either unobtainable for reasons of competition both in our United Kingdom and export markets, or where price increases, such as can be obtained, are at 5 per cent. maximum year on year.
At this point the Secretary of State for Energy may wish to pay particular attention to these facts.
And yet, our electricity and gas undertakings, knowing of the difficulties which we, their customers, are having to live with, notify us of price increases of 32 per cent. and 45 per cent. respectively from last year to this. There appears to be no possibility of negotiating with either of these undertakings and the commercial attitude is quite definitely one of 'take it or leave it'.".
Hon. Members will be under no illusions

about what "leave it" means. If one "leaves it", it means that one closes down, and in my constituency that means that 5,000 people will be out of work. The letter continues:
In a full year the charges notified by these two undertakings will amount to over £ 550,000 and £ 560,000 respectively for BSC, Cumbria; an unbelievable increase in total of £ 1-2 million.
That £ 1-2 million, attributable in just this year to energy price increases, is equivalent to the profits of the British Steel Corporation in Cumbria for the year before last. That is the magnitude of the increases that this Government require the nationalised industries to introduce.
The letter goes on:
It is understood that what lies behind these appalling price increases is the policy of our Government's Department of Energy. But what sense can there be in pursuing a policy which imposes on industries already faced with enormous difficulties, price increases which they can neither discuss nor negotiate and which, at the end of the day, can only result in contraction both of their customer base and thus of their own business? 
Therefore, we have at present a problem for the British Steel Corporation which seems insuperable. On the one hand it has rising costs, particularly for energy, and on the other hand it has the rise in value of sterling and at the same time fairly constant prices world-wide for its products. Yet it is required to compete in the world market against companies that are exporting to us; importing from overseas in the case of the paper industry in America where energy is available at half the price that it is available at on the domestic United Kingdom market and in the case of Germany where subsidies in excess of £ 3,000 million a year are paid to the German steel industry. How is it possible for an industry in the United Kingdom to compete effectively on the world market when it is competing against countries that are willing, through political decisions, to implement, introduce and maintain subsidies on that scale? That is at the heart of the problem of many of the publicly owned industries in this country. It is also at the heart of many of the privately owned industries. They simply cannot afford to pay the price for energy and compete fairly and squarely on the world markets.
The Secretary of State for Energy should intervene now and tell us what is happening and whether his Government are willing to acknowledge that as


a practical problem of manufacturing industries. If the right hon. Gentleman finds that difficult to absorb, let him consider the effect of the policy of high energy charges on BSC Cumbria and its plea of poverty over and above the so-called wise words of the former chairman of the BSC. I have a letter from BSC Cumbria to the Allerdale district council rates department, dated 10 June. It says:
I would now like to refer to… the effects on BSC Cumbria of the most recent increase in rates which we calculate in total to amount to £ 167,000; this representing, across Allerdale, Copeland and Barrow Councils, an average increase of approximately 20 per cent the vast bulk of the rate burden being levied by your Authority. I explained to you at our meeting that this increase was outwith our capability to pay and that the reason for this was that we have no right to levy our customers for price increases and must live within the revenue which we can generate as a selling operation. I informed you that the market conditions in which we currently operate are as difficult as in the desperate recession of the early 1930s.
Having commented that the total rates demand equates to a virtual levy of £ 210 on each employee within the Moss Bay and Chapel Bank sites, the letter continues:
 Therefore, and having failed to find a way forward via discussion to date, I am, on behalf of BSC Cumbria, who are the occupiers, for this purpose, seeking a major remission of Rates under Section 53 of the General Rates Act of 1967, on the grounds of inability to pay for the reason of poverty and would be grateful if you would formally put this application to your Council for a decision.
The BSC, in national negotiations with Government Ministers, says that it does not want subsidies. The truth is that, in the constituencies, regional managers are going to local authorities and plead-ding poverty because they cannot afford to pay their bills. That is the measure of the impact of the Government's policy—the real measure, not the superlative intellectual talk of the House of Commons. That is the real effect on the publicly owned industries in the constituencies of hon. Members on the Labour side of the House.
It is the recognition of those problems in our constituencies that is determining the level of future unemployment. We know that if those publicly owned industries cannot afford to pay their bills, our people will lose their jobs.

Mr. Allen McKay: Is my hon. Friend aware that, in my constituency the steelworks that Mr. MacGregor

says is the jewel in the steel industry's crown is in difficulty because of electricity charges, part of which is in respect of the three months for which the steel industry was on strike and did not use electricity? That has increased the price per ingot tonne by £ 7. The rates that have to be levied because of the cost of the Government's policies on local government have increased the price of the ingot tonne by another £ 4, making a total increase of £ 11 per ingot tonne on last year's price.

Mr. Campbell-Savours: I hope that the Secretary of State heard that point. That is the problem, the case and the story that we are hearing from all parts of the country.
In 1972 a former Conservative Government introduced the Industry Act 1972. Section 7 (1) states:
For the purposes set out in the following provisions of this section the Secretary of State may, with the consent of the Treasury, provide financial assistance where, in his opinion—(a) the financial assistance is likely to provide, maintain or safeguard employment in any part of the assisted areas, and (b) the undertakings for which the assistance is provided are or will be wholly or mainly in the assisted areas.
The BSC plants are in assisted areas. I simply cannot understand why it is not possible to pay into the assisted areas and into the publicly owned indusries energy subsidies in line with that section of the legislation.

Mr. Tim Eggar: I apologise for not being in the Chamber earlier. I was involved in a Committee.
I shall restrict my remarks to two profitable industries in the energy sector—the British National Oil Corporation and the British Gas Corporation. Cash limits place constraints on capital investment by successful and profitable nationalised industries. The rationale for cash limits is clear: the Government wish to keep control over the PSBR. They also wish to put some pressure on nationalised industries to settle wages at reasonable levels.
Unfortunately, nationalised industries increasingly use up their cash limits by accepting wage levels that inevitably lead to a reduction in capital investment. The best example of that is the National Coal Board. However, the NCB has a significant advantage: it can increase its prices since effectively it is a monopoly supplier.
The danger is that nationalised industries will be forced by cash limits to take decisions that no similar private enterprise with the same turnover and capital investment decisions has to take. British Gas Corporation is an example. Its turnover amounts to thousands of millions of pounds. A change in the weather in winter can affect that turnover by hundreds of millions of pounds. Yet it is expected to react and act within cash limits measured merely in tens of millions of pounds. That is not practical.
The Government must devise a rolling cash limits system, preferably with a five-year projection, and take out of the cash limits as far as is possible that amount of expenditure which should be for capital investment and that which should be current expenditure. I recognise that that is complicated. Unless the Government examine that possibility, profitable nationalised industries will be forced to make uncommercial decisions because of the cash limits.
My second argument relates to the future ownership and structure of ownership of the BNOC and the BGC. It is an integral part of Conservative philosophy—a part of Conservative policy so eloquently portrayed in "The Right Approach to the Economy"—that ownership of nationalised industries should be spread directly to the people. "The Right Approach to the Economy" states
Ownership by the State is not the same as ownership by the people.
We have an opportunity to live up to that undertaking and pledge in relation to the oil and gas industries.
I am anxious about press reports. The Financial Times today and The Observer on Sunday suggested that the great Tory way forward was that the British National Oil Corporation was to sell £ 500 million worth of oil bonds. What possible purpose could that serve?
That operation will not spread ownership. We shall not have equity shares quoted. People will not be able to buy and sell bits of the North Sea or BNOC. The consequences are clear: people who would otherwise have invested in gilts, put their savings into the Post Office or bought national savings certificates will put their money into oil price-related stock with BNOC. Those who should

benefit from North Sea oil or gas will not be able to buy that stock. The people who will invest will be those who have savings, people living in the South-East, the wealthy section of the community. When the scheme is announced, I shall not even be surprised to hear the cry repeated that it is Scotland's oil.
The proposals may be a face-saving exercise to make it appear that the Tory Party is changing the status quo. That is not enough. We have the opportunity to give shares to everyone in the country over 18, which would be a real way to spread ownership. Everyone could have the opportunity to participate in the wealth of North Sea oil and gas. My hon. Friend the Minister has studied the situation in British Columbia and Alberta. I believe that he, too, will have reached the conclusion that the administrative problems of such a scheme are not insuperable.
In a debate on the oil industry about two weeks ago, the right hon. Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Dr. Owen) made it clear that of the schemes that had come forward from these Benches for denationalisation or privatising or changing the status of BNOC, the option of giving shares directly to the people was the one that he found least objectionable.
It is not too late. We have the opportunity to give share ownership directly to the people. That opportunity should be seized with both hands. We shall greatly regret it if we let it go.

Mr. Donald Anderson: A distortion of private investment in favour of the oil sector as a result of the policy that the hon. Member for Enfield, North (Mr. Eggar) fears can only be at the expense of private investment in industries and regions that desperately need such investment.
I make no apology for beginning with the Welsh dimension. Wales depends more on the public sector than any other area of Great Britain. The Government's negative attitude to the public sector causes more job losses and anxiety in Wales than elsewhere. All that the Prime Minister could say to us in Swansea last Saturday about the avalanche of job losses that has befallen us in the public and private sector in Wales was that


the Welsh people should be prepared to move out of their own country, with all the echoes that that has of what happened in the 1930s. It is therefore hardly surprising that even at that Conservative assembly she had to slip out of a side door without answering questions, as if slipping out of a beleaguered garrison.
The steel crisis depends in part on the world recession but also on the Government's unreal cash limits and their timetable for breaking even. We in Wales fear that the measures of the success of the new chairman, Mr. MacGregor, will be a narrow profitability, which can result only in one or more of the two remaining bulk steel producers in Wales having to close.
The blows to the steel industry in Wales have a knock-on effect on the coal industry, with a number of pits being in jeopardy. It is an effect that will go through even to the rail industry as 80 per cent. of freight receipts in the region come from the passage of coal to the steel industry. That is bound to maken the Welsh valleys. It will be more difficult for the British Railways Board to maintain lines at the margin, of which there are many in Wales. The knock-on effect can only contribute further to the de-industrialisation of Wales.
Given the recession and BR's efforts to keep within its external financial limits, there is a danger that it will be forced to sell assets at knock-down prices. That will happen simultaneously with considerable pressure from the Government to keep down fare increases.
British Rail subsidiaries under the present financial structure are operating at a commercial disadvantage. I see no reason in principle why in certain areas private capital should not be attracted. For example, Sealink has bought from Harland and Wolff when commercial criteria might have persuaded it to buy from foreign yards.
Does the new commercial set-up that will result from the Government's proposals mean that it will make commercial but not national sense for it to refuse to go to a yard such as Harland and Wolff? That may be justified in the public interest, but I trust that the Government will not blame the public sector for the consequences.
Under present regulations, British Rail cannot operate "lease and lease back". However, that is achievable by simple statutory amendment. British Rail could have greater commercial freedom without going to the lengths that the Secretary of State is suggesting purely for dogmatic reasons.
The right hon. Gentleman says, as he told the House on Monday of last week, that the new subsidiaries—for example, Sealink UK Ltd. and British Transport Hotels.—will not have 51 per cent. public interest. He said that if there were that interest they would not be outside the PSBR; but there is already a precedent in the Government's proposals for the new British Airways and BP in its old manifestation before a portion was sold off. There was a 51 per cent. State interest, but BP was outside the PSBR. There are clear precedents for the Government if they want them. The money supply effect will be the same for the subsidiaries irrespective of whether they are within the public sector.
There is a real danger of the new proposals for privatisation leading to less competition. What is to prevent the competitors of Sealink, whether Townsend Thoresen or European Ferries, from buying into Sealink and thereby reducing competition on the Channel routes? It is even conceivable that B and I, a wholly owned Irish Government company, would buy into Sealink, which would have an adverse effect on British Rail's operation from Fishguard as B and I currently operates from Pembroke Dock.
Once the Government float the shares and make Sealink a private company, there is nothing they can do to prevent a "dawn raid"—namely, one of the commercial competitors of Sealink buying into the company and taking decisions that will have an adverse effect on the new company. Given the Government's proposals, that cannot be prevented.
British Rail's property holdings are the most glamorous part of the package. Why should the Government not allow those holdings greater freedom from ministerial control in incurring expenditure in the acquisition or development of property? The Secretary of State knows that under current procedures there are joint ventures. There is a hazy line between the operation of British Rail's property interests and the private sector. That


could well be enhanced; the Government's proposals involve that glamorous incentive to encourage private sector capital into the new companies. In the 1960s, British Rail was forced to sell many of its property interests at knock-down prices. There is a danger that the Government will force British Rail to do that again.
I hope that the Secretary of State will answer my next point. In the debate on 14 July he said:
The proceeds will go to British Rail. We have made that absolutely clear."—[Officiul Report, 14 July 1980; Vol. 988 c. 1056.]
Does that mean that any receipts will immediately go to British Rail? Will part go and the remainder be deferred? Will they be used by the Treasury to reduce British Rail's total debt, when the oldest debt has the lowest interest rate? Will the receipts obtained by British Rail as a result of the sale of assets be used to reduce the external financial limit on British Rail? If so, they would not be available for electrification and other urgently needed investment outlets. British Rail would have no incentive to maximise the profitability of those subsidiaries.
This financial year, British Rail's property holdings will contribute about £ 50 million to its general coffers. Will the Secretary of State give an assurance that under his proposals no less than that amount will be available to British Rail from property interests? He knows that British Rail desperately needs capital. Lately, the levels of investment have been the lowest of any railway undertaking in Europe. British Rail needs capital for its inter-city business, to maintain the network and for main-line electrification.
What trade-off will compensate British Rail for the loss of those interests in terms of extra cash for investment in the main-line business? In the proposals to assist British Rail, is the motive to compensate the community fairly or to give the private sector a quick buck? Are the Government following their ideological wish to roll back the public sector so that they can raise a cheer at the Tory Party conference? The Government have been playing with fire. In the past few years substantial industrial harmony in the railway industry has been

carefully built up by the present chairman. As a result of the Government's dogmatic exercise, there is a danger that that will be lost. The proposals are irrelevant to British Rail's needs. The Government have no policy for the railways. They have concentrated on the subsidiaries at the expense of the investment needs of the 1980s—namely, electrification, the Channel tunnel and the opportunities that public rail offers in an energy-hungry world.

Mr. Peter Shore: In winding up for the Opposition, I, too, must remind the House that this is the third in a series of Supply days in which we have sought to focus attention upon the major economic problems of the country and the main defects of the Government's economic policies. There can be no doubt about the gravity of our situation. It has been referred to by many of my hon. Friends, who spoke from their direct constituency experience. However, hardly a word about the economy escaped the lips of the Secretary of State for Energy when he spoke earlier in the debate.
As we know, unemployment last month leapt to the post-war record of 16 million—an increase of about 350,000 over what it was when the Government took office. The whole country, and I believe even the Government, are bracing themselves for the shock of tomorrow's figures. The British economy was at first sluggish in response to Government measures; difficulties were heaped upon it in the summer of last year. It tottered along until about March, when the collapse really began. Industrial output in the March to May quarter has fallen quite dramatically. As we all know, the output of manufacturing industries was down some 8 per cent. in May compared with what it was a year ago. Nowhere in the economy is there at present a gleam of light. Output is down, but investment, particularly in manufacturing industry, is falling more steeply. The trends suggest that we shall experience a contraction of 8 to 12 per cent. in crucial investment in manufacturing industry. Exports are falling as well.
How can it be otherwise when we have a rising exchange rate and when we are busy pricing ourselves out of the


world market? It would be difficult enough to hold our own in the world market if world trade was buoyant, but it is not. As the House will recall, according to the latest OECD survey the world economy is now expected to grow by less than 1 per cent. in the period 1980-81. The prediction is for a growth of unemployment in the OECD area from just under 20 million to more than 23 million in mid-1981.
In her weekend speech at Swansea, the Prime Minister said that some part of the difficulty was due to the world recession and that the other part was self-inflicted. I do not quarrel with that. What she did not point out in relation to the world recession was the negative part which she herself played in the Venice summit of Seven—those countries which collectively dominate world trade—in making sure that no significant new action was taken to deal with the menacing problems of global recession. Wounds have been inflicted upon the whole British economy, but nowhere has the attack been more vindictive and absurd than on the public sector of industry, which is the focus of today's debate. That is a sector of British industry whose success is indispensable to our economic health.
We know of the Government's general approach to the nationalised industries. After 10 minutes of almost total triviality, the Secretary of State for Energy had the gall to claim that the Government had a balanced approach—practical and questioning—to the nationalised industries. That was a theme which a number of his hon. Friends developed. I do not believe him. I take as a rather stronger and better guide to the Government's approach the Prime Minister, who declared that it was her major purpose to roll back the frontiers of the State, and I take even more seriously the remarks of the Secretary of State for Industry, who I am delighted to see in his place. It was he who last week reminded himself and us that nationalisation was, as he once described it, one of six "poisons" which were circulating in the bloodstream of the nation. So much for a balanced approach.
When I listened to the right hon. Gentleman, I was reminded how in medieval physiology the four chief fluids of the body—blood, phlegm, choler and

melancholy—were, according to their particular mix, held to determine a person's physical and mental qualities. We recall the prescription that followed from such primitive medical analyses—the leechings, the bleedings, the starvings and the amputations.
The attack on the nationalised industries has been hardly less crude and ill informed. Not a week passes without some fresh statement on how the Government intend to injure or reduce the prospects of those industries. Only today the Secretary of State for Industry made his statement on how he intends to break the telecommunications monopoly. We had a statement, a half statement or a hint from the Secretary of State for Energy about new measures in electricity supply which I hope his right hon. Friend the Minister of Transport will amplify in the course of his remarks later. Last week we had statements from both right hon. Gentlemen about what they intended to do with the British Rail subsidiaries, on the one hand, and the Post Office proper, on the other.
The pattern of attack is entirely clear. First, the nationalised industries are being arbitrarily severed from all the ancillary activities and enterprises that they have developed, and developed for sound operational reasons often long before they were nationalised. But, as we know, these subsidiaries are profitable, and it is the doctrine of the Conservative Party to dispose of everything that is profitable and to return it to private ownership.
Secondly, the Government are forcing the sale, in part or in whole of those public corporations which are in surplus. The National Freight Corporation is to be disposed of and British Airways and British Aerospace are to be turned into companies and forced to dispose of roughly half their shares. The Minister and his colleagues are still dithering about how they can best dispose of property represented in the British National Oil Corporation.
Thirdly, the nationalised industries are being subjected, wherever possible, to increasing competitive pressures: in the Post Office; in British Airways with, above all, the operations of the Civil Aviation Authority and its changed directives about licensing private airlines; and in the National Bus Corporation and


municipal bus services with the new licensing policies in the Transport Act. All that has been done when the Government know full well that to supply a wide public service—air, bus or post—it is essential that cross-subsidisation takes place so that the profitable traffic can sustain the inevitably unprofitable services which are of benefit to so many people.
The fourth and still more serious point of attack—my right hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Dr. Owen) referred to it earlier, so I need say very little about it—is that the Government have put the nationalised industries into a financial straitjacket. On the one hand, they are reducing their lending to the nationalised industries and, on the other hand, they are imposing cash limits based on totally unrealistic inflationary forecasts—a point made by the hon. Member for Enfield, North (Mr. Eggar) a short time ago.
Over the Government's five-year period we are to have a massive turn-round in the borrowing position of the nationalised industries—a turn-round of about £ 23 billion. This turn-round in nationalised industry finance can be achieved only by sending a wave of deflation through the economy. Prices, charges and fares will rise steeply and both industrial and domestic consumers have to carry the load.
I have confined myself to the nationalised industries, the public corporations, and the damage that has been inflicted upon them, but I want to turn to the crucial area of public enterprise and the manufacturing sector of industry. The Govenment's basic, negative approach was made plain by the Secretary of State for Industry as long ago as 6 November on Second Reading of the Industry Bill. He said:
There should be no need for public sector investment finance in manufacturing industry."—[Official Report, 6 November 1979; Vol. 973, c. 240.]
The fact that there is such a need is an entirely different matter, but there should not be. The first instruction of the new Act is to place on the National Enterprise Board the duty of disposing of, not acquiring, investment in the manufacturing sector.
What is happening now was entirely predictable. The NEB is selling its most

profitable holdings. Ferranti, ICL and others have been disposed of. Alfred Herbert's has simply gone to the wall. That is a nonsensical policy. As the new chairman of the NEB—the Secretary of State's personal appointee—pointed out in his annual report in April;
The present form of financial duty laid down by Government can only make sense if the NEB maintains profitable investments as a means of supporting its new projects during their start up and loss-making years.
Clearly, the policy of forced disposal of profitable firms will make that task impossible.
The NEB has been allowed to retain one potentially important role in some areas of high technology where the capital market cannot be relied upon to supply the necessary risk capital. One is inclined to ask how that can be, and the Secretary of State for Industry's philosophical worries about that matter have left him virtually paralysed.
The new board decided in December to back the Inmos project with a second tranche of £ 25 million. In April, the chairman said in his report:
We took this decision conscious of the risks inherent in such a bold innovative venture… At the time of writing, three months after our decisions, we await a decision by Government… This is a worrying delay to a project where success depends on bringing satisfactory products to the market at the right time in the face of strong foreign competition.'
Another three months have passed since then and still the Secretary of State for Industry wrestles with his conscience and dithers with his decision.
We should be clear about the main thrust and purpose of Government policy. It is, at best, to halt the expansion and, at worst, to enforce a major contraction of the basic industries and public services provided by public corporations. Secondly, it is to drive public enterprise out of the manufacturing sector of British industry.
We could take each of the nationalised industries and firms and judge its performance against the purpose of its original acquisition or establishment. I believe that we should find, as we have in the past, that the case for retaining those industries in public ownership and assisting them in their activities is overwhelming. If they are damaged or hobbled, services will suffer. If they are destroyed, there will be no serious


possibility, certainly among the main nationalised industries, of private enterprise taking them over.
There has always been a wider economic case for public ownership. Nationalised industries collectively account for between one-quarter and one-third of total investment in plant and machinery in British industry. They can, and do, take a long-term view of national needs. Indeed, they have to do so, because the time scale of their investments often stretches for a decade or more.
With few exceptions, private corporations, however large, are unable to take so long a view. It follows that nationalised industries are relatively free from the damaging effects of the business cycle. With public finance they are able to sustain their investment programmes, to the great benefit of the whole economy. I repeat "the whole economy", because a large part of nationalised industries' equipment programmes sustains the order books of private industry. The contraction of nationalised industry programmes has a directly damaging effect on the private sector. In terms of economic management, when private industry is depressed the expansion and bringing forward of nationalised industry expenditure can act as a major counter to deflation.
The programmes of nationalised industries have given a basic stability to the British economy and have helped to sustain full employment and economic growth through most of the post-war period. They are being denied the opportunity to play that role today. I find that particularly odd, bearing in mind that the Prime Minister came back from the Venice meeting with a commitment to break the link between growth and shortage of oil, which is holding back the economies of the Western world.
The Prime Minister came back with policies agreed to double the supply and use of coal by 1990 and to carry out other major projects for energy production and energy saving in the economies of the West. There is no reflection of any of that thinking or objective in the Government's programme. Not only in Britain but in many other parts of the world the expansion of energy supplies will have to come about through the expansion of publicly owned industries.
Not to recognise this is a major defect in the Government's thinking.
My second main point concerns what I call the new role of public enterprise in the manufacturing sector of British industry. Like others, I am concerned—and the Secretary of State for Industry has frequently addressed himself to this question—about the relative failure of Britain's manufacturing' industry in terms of output, competitiveness and share of export markets over the past 20 years. It is in this sector that we shall win or lose the battle for our future.
The question that I ask myself, and that the right hon. Gentleman has asked himself, is why the decline over the past 20 years has taken place. The Secretary of State addressed himself to the question at his party's annual conference, when he said that, whatever else was the cause, it was "not the failure of private enterprise".
As no one but private enterprise has until recently entered manufacturing, it is difficult to see who else can be blamed. So the right hon. Gentleman had to widen the explanation, to assert:
For decades and generations private enterprise has not been given the climate in which it can produce its beneficent results".
I repeat "decades and generations", including, presumably, the 13 years of uninterrupted Conservative rule from 1951 to 1964, when the Conservatives "set the people free" and "invested in success"; including, presumably, the inter-war years, when the balance of industrial, social and political power was massively tilted in favour of industrial and commercial interests.
The facts of our manufacturing decline are not in dispute. In 1963 our exports exceeded our imports by about 100 per cent. By 1970 they exceeded imports by only 50 per cent., and last year by only 5 per cent. This year we expect there to be no manufacturing surplus at all.
We in the Labour Party have drawn very different conclusions from this relative decline. Above all, we have noted the reluctance to invest in Britain and the willingness and facility to invest overseas. For the past 15 years direct investment overseas by United Kingdom manufacturing companies has increased two and a half times faster than their investment at home.
We have noted, too, the persistent undervaluation of the engineer in British industry, the point so strongly made in the recent Finniston report. We have also noted the various policies pursued with insufficient success in the post-war period. We invested immensely in higher education. We transformed Britain's road, rail, air and sea communications. We made our investment incentives in industry among the best and most generous in the world. After all this had been done, who will forget the cri de coeur of the last Conservative Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Sidcup (Mr. Heath), in his interview with The Director magazine in June 1973? He said:
The curse of British industry is that it has never anticipated demand. When we came in we were told there weren't sufficient inducements to invest. So we provided the inducements. Then we were told people were scared of balance of payments difficulties leading to stop-go. So we floated the £. Then we were told of fears of inflation: and now we are dealing with that. And still you aren't investing enough.
There is a fundamental weakness, a weakness on the supply side. That is why as a party we made the historic decision in the 1970s not to wipe out the private sector in manufacturing industry but deliberately to cross its frontier with public enterprise on a substantial scale. It is here that the ideological folly of the Government is so clearly demonstrated. They believe that public enterprise is wrong in principle and bound to fail. Where it succeeds, they insist on selling it off. Where is has yet to succeed, they wish to deny it the possibilities of rescue or success. All the time they have failed to recognise that the great simplicities that govern their own economic thinking—the spur of profit, the incentive of great reward, the virtues of competition—are largely irrelevant today to the great private corporations which conduct the main part of our manufacturing business.
Let me jog the memory of the Minister of Transport, who is to reply to the debate. Does he really think that Rolls-Royce lacked competition before 1970? Does he really think that what motivated the management of Rolls-Royce—before the Government decided to rescue it from collapse by nationalisation—was the dividend to be paid to its shareholders? I doubt whether any of the directors or

managers ever owned more than a handful of shares. They were motivated, narrowly, perhaps, by managerial perks and rewards, but more broadly by their wish to see success for what was, and is, a great British engineering enterprise. So what led to the downfall of Rolls-Royce? It was lack of investment, overstretched finances and management mis-judgment.
Again, was not British Leyland, before the rescue in 1975, a major private business, managerially controlled? Would even this Government really have accepted its collapse, with the direct and indirect loss of half a million jobs and the loss of perhaps £ 2,000 million on the balance of payments? Does the Minister really think, like his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Industry, that
free enterprise is not only the best way yet invented towards full employment and rising standards of living, but it is the only way to secure these conditions in freedom"?
Has Renault, wholly owned by the French State since 1945, not only expanded employment and expanded output but in some mysterious way avoided tyranny in France?
Do not the Minister and his colleagues understand that in a world of increasingly complex and expensive technology even large private corporations are dangerously slow to innovate and often unable or unwilling to take the necessary risk?
I do not want to add unnecessarily to the Government's difficulties, but the more vehemently they assert their total commitment to their present policies, the more that ruin spreads in British industry, the more obvious it is that doubt—indeed, major doubt—is seeping in. There is doubt about the whole economic strategy that the Government are pursuing, and beyond doubt there is fear that the social and political consequences will be catastrophic.
Faced with the virtual collapse of the steel industry, the Government have this year doubled the assistance that the Prime Minister had sworn not to give. Worse still, from the Government's point of view, the great economic gurus of the present Conservative faith have now confessed to recent and terrible doubts. I know that the Prime Minister is sensitive about these gentlemen, Professors Milton Friedman and Von Hayek. She


went out of her way in Swansea on Saturday to say:
Our opponents say that the Government is deliberately depriving people of jobs in obedience to some fanatical and obscure economic doctrine invented by columnists.
Yes, that is precisely what they are saying. But now what does Professor Friedman have to say? Money supply, of course, is still the ark of the covenant, but the PSBR is a different matter. That can and should be relaxed, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, East (Mr. Healey) has frequently urged. So what happens to the Red Book forecast and the commitment to the virtual elimination of the PSBR by 1984?
Then, even worse, there is the case of Professor Von Hayek. He is still in favour of monetarism but, as he revealed in his letter to The Times last month, it takes time, and there may not be enough time. So, after all that has been said about free collective bargaining, about the sheer impossibility of inflation so long as the money supply it sightly controlled, the Government must, according to the professor,
at once rescind all the special privileges which have been granted to the trade unions by law… only this can make it possible for the beneficial effects of such a money supply policy to manifest itself in time before the term of the present Government runs out.
Finally, and most damaging, we had the speech of the Chancellor of the Exchequer of 15 July to the Coningsby club. Up to that moment, whatever the short-term planning and however improbable the way ahead may have seemed, the phoenix of free enterprise was destined to rise from the ashes of our industrial collapse. But now, after that speech, we are asked to face the fact of a permanent contraction of manufacturing employment.
The possession of North Sea oil, so the Chancellor tells us, means a permanently high exchange rate for the pound and a consequential inability to compete over a wide range of manufactures. Thus, under the present Government's mismanagement, the very possession of oil, which should enrich us, has been turned into an instrument for our own impoverishment. That is the economics of bedlam and of failure.
What we are experiencing is basically an appalling intellectual recidivism by the Conservative Party—a return to free

market dogmas of the most extreme kind; an expunging from its memory of the whole post-war experience which, in spite of its setbacks, more than doubled the standard of living of the British people: a lurch back into the exhausted economics and fallacies of the inter-war years, into the terrible political fatalism and absurd belief that economic regeneration was the consequence not of Government action but of Government inaction; the belief that if only inflation can be defeated all will be well—just as if from 1924 to 1939 we did not have a decade and a half of stable, even falling, prices and along with with it the waste and misery of industrial decline, endemic unemployment and unacceptable poverty. To support today these outdated cliches is nothing less than an intellectual disgrace.
I am reminded of the words of John Maynard Keynes of some years ago. He said:
Practical men who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence are usually the slaves of some defunct economist. Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back.
I leave it to the House to decide, as hon. Members survey the Government Front Bench, who fall into the category of
practical men… the slaves of some defunct economist
and who are the
Madmen in authority… distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back.
I tell the Government to open their eyes, get rid of their dogma and recognise that our major problems have now become a lack of effective demand and that great resources of wealth and output lie idle now and must be brought back into use. They must recognise, too, the crucial need to improve the supply side of the economy, and that that will need more than the motor of private enterprise. It will need the strong thrust of the engine of public enterprise as well.
Finally, let them recognise that they will get nowhere by attacking one half of the nation. Rather, success will require a joint effort of both our productive classes—the working class and the middle class—the earning classes who, with their different traditions, skills and virtues, made us prosperous in the past and, with the right policies, will make us prosperous again.

The Minister of Transport (Mr. Norman Fowler): I shall seek to reply to as many of the points raised in the debate as I can. Clearly, one of the central themes of the debate—and I, perhaps unlike the right hon. Member for Stepney and Poplar (Mr. Shore), have listened to most of the debate—has been the balance between the public sector and private enterprise. It has been dealt with by my hon. Friends the Members for Gillingham (Sir F. Burden) and Seven-oaks (Mr. Wolfson), who stressed the importance of public sector staff. I agree with their remarks. It has been stressed by my hon. Friend the Member for Faversham (Mr. Moate) in an impressive speech and by my hon. Friend the Member for Flint, West (Sir A. Meyer), who pointed out that nationalisation in itself is no guarantee of the future or prosperity of an industry. I also pay tribute to the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Abingdon (Mr. Benyon) on the provision of labour.
We also heard speeches from the hon. Members for Ogmore (Mr. Powell), Newcastle-under-Lyme (Mr. Golding) and Consett (Mr. Watkins). We heard a further variation from the right hon. Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Dr. Owen), who talked, in passing, about the mixed economy, without stopping to define his intention. I shall return to the right hon. Gentleman's remarks in a moment.
It is that balance between the public and private sectors that lies at the heart of this debate. The introduction of private capital was touched on in several speeches, and there was a ludicrous charge of asset-stripping from the right hon. Member for Devonport. The Government's position is clear: we are introducing private capital into State-owned industries when it is in the interest of the industry and the public to do so. We see no advantage to the economy, the consumer or the work force in keeping businessses in the public sector when they can survive better outside, with access to private capital and with freedom from controls and Government interference. Surely, the whole characteristic of this approach is an industry-by-industry examination of the position and solutions geared to meet the particular and specific needs of those industries.
My hon. Friend the Member for Faversham and my hon. Friend the Member for Meriden (Mr. Mills) welcomed the Government's provisions for the National Freight Corporation and British Rail subsidiaries. They asked further about the position of the British Transport Docks Board. The ports operated by the British Transport Docks Board were originally owned and controlled by the private railway companies of the last century. Following rail nationalisation in 1947, the railway ports were administered as part of the British Transport Commission, and, following the Transport Act 1962, with a few exceptions, they came under the control of the British Transport Docks Board. The boad now operates 19 ports, including Southampton, Hull, Birmingham, Cardiff and Lowestoft. They handle about a quarter of the total port traffic in Great Britain.
In March I told the House that I had asked Sir Humphrey Browne, chairman of the British Transport Docks Board, to explore ways of introducing private capital into the board's undertaking, in consultation with the trade unions and others concerned, and to report to me. The chairman has now reported, and I have consulted a merchant bank. I am glad to be able to tell the House—

Mr. Anderson: Is it not in the normal tradition of the House for a statement of this importance to be made at the end of Question Time?

Mr. Speaker: Ministers choose their own moments to make statements.

Mr. Fowler: What I am now saying follows my statement to the House in March. I intend to respond to the request of my hon. Friends and to set out my intentions.
I am glad to tell the House that the Government have decided to proceed with plans to introduce private capital into the board. I propose to proceed with the preparation of legislation to make the necessary changes in the board's constitution in order to transform it into a company and give me the powers to sell shares in it.
I wish to make two essential points about this proposal. First, the plans that we have set out envisage that the board's undertaking will be maintained as a single management unit. In other words,


there will be no break-up or disposal of individual ports. Secondly, although the Government will take a 51 per cent. holding, this will not involve any intervention in the running of the business, and existing controls under the 1962 Transport Act will be removed. Legislation will be needed and I intend to introduce the proposals to the House at the earliest opportunity.
The advantage of this course—I add that the chairman of the BTDB accepts this—is that it will give full commercial freedom to the board. The board will no longer be subject to intervention and interference from the Government. This is a course that recognises the success of the management and work force and it means that they will be responsible for their own future without Government controls on investment.

Mr. Shore: The right hon. Gentleman must realise that there is a great deal of resentment at what he is doing now. The British Transport Docks Board, with its extensive dock facilities, enters into the constituencies of many hon. Members. I do not see why the Minister should not come to the House and make a proper statement in order to give hon. Members on both sides the chance to question him properly.

Mr. Fowler: I was about to give way to one of the right hon. Gentleman's hon. Friends who wants to ask a question about this subject. In the time that I have done the job of Transport Minister, I have, in total contrast to my predecessor, come to the House and made statements. I have made a statement previously on this matter. If the right hon. Gentleman wishes to compare my record with that of my predecessor, I suggest that he does so.

Mr. Jack Straw: Since the Minister is abusing the House in making a statement during a winding-up speech, will he come to the House again and give hon. Members a chance to ask questions after a statement in the afternoon?

Mr. Fowler: If the hon. Member has only just woken up to the fact that these are the kind of proposals that we have for the BTDB, I do not know what he has been doing—especially as I made my announcement about this on the Floor of the House last March. The fact is that

we are developing our policy. I take every opportunity to explain the development of our policies on the Floor of the House. I am doing that now.

Mr. Bagier: Is not what the Minister has just said in this context a distinct abuse of the House? As the senior Minister replying for the Government on behalf of all nationalised industries, will he agree that to take up this amount of time is litile short of disgraceful and is dodging away from the cross-examination that he would otherwise receive?

Mr. Fowler: I repeat what I said a moment ago. On the question of taking up time, I have given away five minutes so that another hon. Member from the Opposition Benches could get into the debate. I have been here listening to the debate from beginning to end, unlike the light hon. Member for Stepney and Poplar.
Above all, our proposal recognises that there is no need for the British Transport Docks Board to remain in the public sector under the restrictions and threat of restrictions that that involves.
Again, that underlines the Government's determination to have an industry-by-industry examination. For that reason, we have not chosen a single standard way to introduce private capital. It is no part of our intention to move from the inflexibility favoured by the Opposition to a different inflexibility. We have deliberately chosen different courses to introduce private capital into, for example, the National Freight Corporation—where the Government do not seek a shareholding—or into British Rail subsidiaries—where, ultimately, the subsidiary companies will have a minority British Rail interest—or into British Airways and British Aerospace. That those courses are different is a matter of strength, not weakness.
The subject of British Rail subsidiaries was raised by a number of hon. Members, including my hon. Friends the Members for Gillingham, Sevenoaks and Faversham. It was also raised by. the hon. Members for Swansea, East (Mr. Anderson) and Sunderland, South (Mr. Bagier), who spoke of the menace that it posed. I hope to persuade him that his fears are wholly misplaced. I agree entirety with those who argue that the interests of the public must include the interests of those who work for British


Rail subsidiaries, and also those who have an interest in seeing those businesses develop.
The position is clear. For years companies such as British Transport Hotels and Sealink have been starved of investment. Until recently they came low, if not bottom, for management attention within the railway industry. Today, there is no serious figure inside the industry who believes that things should continue as they are, that the status quo should be preserved.
There is no serious figure inside the industry who believes that the problems of the subsidiary businesses have appeared in the past 15 months. They have been evident during the past 20 years. As we know to our cost, for more than half of those 20 years the Opposition were in Government. There is no serious figure inside the industry—or inside any other industry—who is satisfied that one of the nation's leading hotel groups is producing £ 300,000 profit on a £ 38 million turnover. I say to the right hon. Member for Devonport that there is no serious figure inside the industry who believes that the chairman of British Rail is party to an agreement which he does not feel is in the interests of the railway industry. There are enough men on the Opposition Front Bench who know the truth of that.
When the plans were announced, the chairman of British Rail said in a press release that the British Railways Board
welcomes the announcement by the Minister of Transport today… that private capital is to be introduced into its main non-rail subsidiary activities and plans, using its existing powers, to set up a holding company".
Sir Peter Parker said:
Railways are a creative business. The introduction of private capital should increase the scope and unlock the great potential of the subsidiary businesses. Investment has been limited and because of the thin spread, the subsidiaries have been starved. The proposed changes should also result in benefits to the main rail business.
The right hon. Member for Devonport quoted the Financial Times at every point during his speech. But the Financial Times also said:
The plan for bringing private capital into some of British Rail's non-railway activities which was outlined yesterday… is a victory for commercial good sense.

Mr. Robin F. Cook (Edinburgh, Central): Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Fowler: No. The Opposition motion claims that our policies are against the public's interest. It makes sense to seek opportunties for these businesses, to see them grow and not decay and to give managements the freedom that they should have.
The standards for judging the performance of a nationalised industry are the same as for any other industry. Performance must be judged by the standards of goods and services, by the prospects that they bring for their work forces and by their ability to generate wealth and contribute to national resources. Our complaint is that all too often nationalised industries have failed on those counts.
That failure is not necessarily the result of the management's action. It might be because of long-term lack of investment. That is one of the reasons why we are introducing private investment. Alternatively, it might be the result of bad productivity that has made goods uncompetitive. I agree with what the hon. Member for Bristol, North-East (Mr. Palmer) said about that. It might have resulted from a lack of normal competitive forces.
One of the main thrusts of the Government's policy is to do what we can to make the nationalised industries more accountable to the public and more responsive to the needs of the consumer. I say to the right hon. Member for Devonport that that is the characteristic of our approach. For too long the customer has taken second place. Surely the customer's needs should come first, whether they are served by public industry or private industry.
The best way to make the nationalised industries more responsive is to expose them to fair competition with the private sector. We have been reviewing the areas where the nationalised industries have been unnecessarily protected from the rigours of the market place.
The Transport Act will open up bus services to exactly such competition. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Industry made an announcement in the House today about the relaxation of the British telecommunications mono-


poly and the post monopoly and the development of new services. That is an example of the action that we are taking and intend to take. The last thing that we want to do is to be drawn into the day-to-day management of the nationalised industries.
In addition to financial control, some mechanism is often essential to act as a substitute for the disciplines of competition which apply to the rest of the economy. Without that, it is too easy for a monopoly industry to meet its financial target simply by raising prices. That is why we have taken power in the Competition Act to subject the nationalised industries and other bodies protected by some degree of statutory monopoly—such as the water authorities—to investigation by the Monopolies and Mergers Commission. The Act gives the Secretary of State for Trade power to refer to the Commission the efficiency, costs and standards of the services provided by nationalised industries. That must be the right approach for the Government.
Already British Rail's London and South-East commuter services and the CEGB have been referred to the Commission. The Commission has been asked to look in particular at the reasons for the decline in the quality of commuter services and the scope for reducing costs by improvement in productivity and efficiency. The Government have announced their intention to refer the Severn and Trent water authority to the Commission in the autumn. Investigations by the Monopolies and Mergers Commission will help to establish areas where improvements in efficiency and service can be made.

Mr. Bagier: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Fowler: We welcome the opportunity of this debate to set out our policies and explain them further.
However, having listened to almost every speech from the Opposition, I remain puzzled as to why they chose the subject for a Supply day debate. The implication of their motion is that they have something better to offer. However, as Opposition Members themselves have pointed out, a solution was not offered when Labour was in power, and nor are

we any clearer what Labour policy is now that Labour is in Opposition.

Mr. Bagier: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Fowler: Is the Labour Party policy that of its national executive committee? That, surely to goodness, cannot be an unfair question, but nothing was more typical than the reaction—

Mr. Barry Sheerman: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Surely, it is an abuse of the House to spend 20 minutes of a 30-minute wind-up speech on transport when the debate concerns nationalised industries.

Mr. Speaker: Order. The Minister must make his own speech.

Mr. Fowler: I do not believe that the hon. Gentleman can have been listening to the debate or my speech. The reaction from the Opposition Front Bench was typical when my right hon. Friend quite fairly raised the question of whether the national executive committee of the Labour Party was supported. The right hon. Member for Stepney and Poplar studied the skylight with such intensity that one would have thought that a message was about to flash up giving the date of the retirement of the Leader of the Opposition.
The issues raised in the document are of fundamental importance. The document has not been produced by whatever body is thought to be conspiring against the Labour Party. It is written and issued on the authority of the national executive committee of the Labour Party. It sets out a radical programme. It promises the extension of public ownership to banking and insurance, pharmaceuticals and medical equipment, construction and building materials and ports and road haulage. It adds:
We shall give a Labour Government the powers to take individual companies into public ownership by Statutory Instrument.
That pledge comes just before the section on democracy at work.
I say one thing for the Left: its policies may be absurd, foolish and misguided, but at least they are clear. Its proposals may be hideously expensive and hopelessly impractical, but no one doubts their meaning. The tragedy is that from the beginning of the debate to the end


we have heard not a murmur of policy from the official Opposition Front Bench.

Mr. James Callaghan: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

Hon. Members: Give way.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Mr. Fowler: I support—

Mr. Callaghan: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Fowler: I support—

Mr. Callaghan: Mr. Callaghan rose—

Mr. Speaker: It appears that the Minister is not giving way.

Mr. Callaghan: What is the future of South Wales steel?

Mr. Fowler: Mr. Fowler rose—

Hon. Members: Give way.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Mr. Callaghan: What is the future of South Wales steel?

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Mr. Fowler: I ask my right hon. and hon. Friends to support the Government amendment tonight.

Mr. Callaghan: What is the future of South Wales steel?

Question put, That the original words stand part of the Question:—

The House divided: Ayes 248, Noes 322.

See Division 411

in column 217

Question accordingly negatived.

Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 32 (Questions on Amendments), That the proposed words be there added:—

The House divided: Ayes 314, Noes 254.

See Division

412 in column 221

Question accordingly agreed to.

Mr. Speaker forthwith declared the main Question, as amended, to be agreed to, pursuant to Standing Order No. 18 (Business of Supply).

Resolved,

That this House welcomes the Government's policies of restoring a proper balance between the state sector and private enterprise, and encouraging greater efficiency and a more competitive climate within such industries, to the lasting advantage of the British economy and the British public.

MEMBERS' SALARIES AND PENSIONS

Mr. Speaker: Before I call the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster to move his motion, it may be for the convenience of the House if I explain the course that we shall follow in the light of the business motion to which the House agreed this afternoon.
The debate on the first of the five motions before the House—those numbered 2 to 6 on the Order Paper—can continue for four hours, and during the course of it it will be open to any hon. Member to discuss all the other motions and amendments which stand on the Order Paper.
At the end of the debate I shall call upon hon. Members to move formally any amendments to motion No. 2 which are shown on the selection list. When any such amendments have been disposed of, I shall put the main Question, or the main Question as amended. I shall then call upon the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster to move formally motion No. 3, to which no amendments are selected, and then motion No. 4. When he has done so, hon. Members whose amendments to motion No. 4 have been selected will be invited successively to move them formally. When those amendments have been disposed of, the main Question, as amended or not amended, will be put.
There are no amendments to motions Nos. 5 and 6, so I shall call upon the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster to move them formally in succession, and I shall put the Question to them.

Mr. George Cunningham: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. You indicated that after motion No. 2 had been disposed of you would call upon the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster to move motion No. 3, to which no amendments have been selected, because no private Member would be in order in moving an amendment to that motion—at least, in an upward direction.
Perhaps it should be understood that we presume that if the first motion—the expression of opinion motion—is amend-

ed the Government will, of course, take the initiative to make a corresponding amendment to the effective motion—that is, the one in the name of the Leader of the House as the effective motion No. 3.

Mr. Eric Ogden: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. You were good enough to indicate that hon. Members might discuss any amendment or motion on the Order Paper referring to this business. I happen to be in the unenviable position of having on the Order Paper five amendments none of which has been selected. It does not happen often, thank goodness. Would it be in order for me or for anyone else who happens to catch your eye, Mr. Speaker, to refer to the amendments on the Order Paper, or only to those which have been selected?

Mr. Speaker: The point of order raised from the Opposition Front Bench by the hon. Member for Islington, South and Finsbury (Mr. Cunningham) is really a point which the Leader of the House will probably answer in his speech.
The hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Mr. Ogden), with his five amendments, does not know the sorrow that the matter caused me. If he catches my eye, he will be free to speak to them, but he will not have an opportunity to vote upon them.

Mr. Roger Moate: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. As the arguments on the subject are not unfamiliar to both sides of the House, would it be in order to suggest that we take the votes now and have the debate afterwards?

Hon. Members: Hear, hear.

Mr. Speaker: I thought a little earlier that I was being made to earn my increase before I received it.

The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. Norman St. John-Stevas): May I first answer the point that has been raised by the hon. Member for Islington, South and Finsbury (Mr. Cunningham)? If the first motion is amended, it will not be the intention of the Government to press ahead with the substantive motion.
We would have to withdraw it and consider what should be done, because the Queen's Recommendation has not been

That, in the opinion of this House, the following provisions about salaries and pensions of Members of this House should be made: -



(1) The salary payable to Members of each of the descriptions in the first column of the following Table-


5
(a) in respect of service on and after 13th June 1980 and before 13th June 1981 shall be at the yearly rate specified in relation to that description in the second column of that Table; and



(b) in respect of service on and after 13th June 1981 shall be at the yearly rate specified in relation to that description in the third column of that Table.


10

TABLE



Description of Member
Yearly rate of salary from 13th June 1980 to 12th June 1981
Yearly rate of salary from 13th June 1981




£
£


15
1. Member not within paragraph 2.
11,750
13,150



2. Member or Officer of this House receiving a salary under the Ministerial and Other Salaries Act 1975 or a pension under section 26 of the Parlia-20 mentary and Other Pensions Act 1972.
6,930
7,670


20






(2) The ordinary salary of every Member in respect of service on and after 13th June 1980 shall be regarded for pension purposes as being at the rate of £ 13,150.


25
(3) Any Member, except one in whose case no deduction is required to be made under section 3 or 4 of the Act of 1972, shall be credited by way of supplement to his salary payable in respect of service on or after 13th June 1980 and before 13th June 1981, with amounts at the yearly rate of £ 84.

As everyone in the House knows, fixing the right rate of salary for Members of Parliament is a difficult matter. It is essentially a question of balance. On the one hand, Members certainly ought to be properly remunerated for the work they do. On the other hand, because of our position in the public eye, we need to give a lead to the country at large.

As my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister made clear in her statement on 7 July, the Government's overriding economic priority is to reduce inflation, and in order to do this we need to achieve and keep to our monetary targets. As she said, unless the growth of earnings is broadly consistent with the rate of monetary growth, the fall in inflation will be accompanied by a larger rise in unemployment.

That is why the level of pay increases in the public sector must be reduced, as is already happening in the private sector. If Parliament does not give a lead now, the example could be severely prejudicial to the climate in which the next pay round is conducted.

signified to an amended motion but only to the motion. I hope that that clears up the point.

I beg to move,

It is the Government's view that a positive lead could best be given by Members accepting a pay increase somewhat lower than that recommended by the Top Salaries Review Body. Although, of course, the final decision on this matter rests with the House, I wish to put it to Members that a degree of self-denial on our part is the most responsible line to take.

Mr. Andrew Faulds: Is the situation not simply that the Prime Minister and the right hon. Gentleman are abusing the devotion and concern to their parliamentary duties of Opposition Members, because, as he is well aware, most of those on his Back Benches have a multiplicity of directorships, which remove them—[Interruption.]—from dependence—[Interruption.]—on a single parliamentary salary?

Mr. St. John-Stevas: I regret that the hon. Member has injected that somewhat partisan note into the debate. This is a matter which concerns—[Interruption.] I have never had a directorship in my life. No one has ever offered me one, so I have never been put to any temptation


I am fully aware that some Members will feel let down. I respect their feelings, but I must repeat what my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister said in her statement on 7 July: the Government must have regard to their wider commitment to propose what they believe to be right in the battle against inflation.
I should like briefly to remind the House of the background to this year's proposals on Members' pay, as it is fairly complex. In 1979 the review body recommended a salary of £ 12,000 for those Members who were not Ministers or other office-holders. The Government accepted that figure, but because the existing salary was only £ 6,897 we felt that the increase was too great to be paid in one go. It was, therefore, agreed by the House that the new salary should be introduced in three stages. The first stage was paid last year, giving Members a salary of £ 9,450. The second stage of £ 10,725 came into payment on 13 June this year, and the third and final stage is due to be paid on 13 June 1981. The recommendations of the review body this year were that both the second and third stages should be increased by 14-6 per cent. The Government think it right to ask hon. Members to settle for a smaller figure. We are, therefore, inviting the House to approve a motion providing for a salary of £ 11,750 from 13 June 1980, and of £ 13,150 from 13 June 1981, an increase of 96 per cent. on the second and third stages respectively.

Mr. Russell Johnston: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. St. John-Stevas: I shall give way, but I should like to finish this background description first.
We have also agreed that the review body should be asked to review next year's third stage increase of hon. Members' pay to £ 13,150.

Mr. Johnston: What evidence does the Leader of the House have that pay restraint on the part of hon. Members would have any effect on any other pay increase in the absence of an incomes policy?

Mr. St. John-Stevas: I do not say that an example by the House alone can solve our inflation problem. However, if the House does not set some sort of example to the nation, any chance that we may

have of succeeding in our anti-inflation policy will be doomed to failure from the start.

Mr. Jack Straw: rose—

Mr. St. John-Stevas: The Government will implement the result of the third stage review, unless there are clear and compelling reasons for not doing so.

Mr. Alexander W. Lyon: Does not the Leader of the House recollect that he gave an assurance to that effect last year and that the Prime Minister wrote to Lord Boyle on 30 July 1979 saying:
It is out intention to accept and implement the recommendations you make.
There was no qualification to that. Why should we believe the right hon. Gentleman now?

Mr. St. John-Stevas: The hon. Gentleman has made a fair point, which I accept. I do not deny, any more than my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister denies, that that pledge was given. But it was given 12 months ago. The situation since then has altered, and the Government have to review the position in the light of events since then. It is for the House to decide on that issue. I am here to request Members to accept the arguments I am putting. The figures will be voted by the House. I can put it no higher than that. The hon. Gentleman is entitled to point to the pledges that we gave. I agree with that.
The restraint we are seeking from the House on Members' pay ought also to apply to allowances and, of course, to Ministers' pay. We propose, therefore, that the secretarial and research assistance allowance should be increased by 9-6 per cent. to £ 7,400 with effect from 13 June 1980. We are proposing for members of the Cabinet and my right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney-General an increase of only 5 per cent. excluding the parliamentary salary, and of 9-6 per cent. for other Ministers and paid office-holders. Junior Ministers in the House of Lords do not receive any salary specifically for their parliamentary duties. We believe that to be a serious problem and we are considering the best way to deal with it. We shall bring forward proposals as soon as posible.
I turn now to the various individual motions. As hon. Members will have


noted, the first two are broadly similar. Both deal with Members' salaries and pensions, but the first is an expression of opinion which the House can amend, whereas the second is subject to the Queen's Recommendation. Hon. Members may recall that this procedure is necessary when dealing with their pay and pensions and derives from the fact that an effective resolution of the House to increase Members' pay automatically leads to an increase in Exchequer contributions to the pension fund. Accordingly, any motion or amendment leading to such an increase formally requires the Queen's Recommendation. If the motion framed as an expression of opinion finds favour with the House, the effective motion will be moved immediately afterwards. If the first motion does not find favour, the subsequent motion will not be moved.

Mr. George Cunningham: The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster said a few moments ago that if the first motion is amended that is a decision for the House to take, and that if the House votes for something different from what the Government want it will be the House's decision that takes place. In that case, why do the Government, if there is an amendment to the first motion, have to take the second motion away? Why do not the Government simply move—I should have thought that the Chair would be willing to accept it—the same amendment to the second one as will have been passed to the first one?

Mr. St. John-Stevas: I do not think that procedurally that would be possible. I shall certainly consider the hon. Gentleman's suggestion because, as I have made clear, on this matter it is the wish of the House that decides the issue. That has always been the case, and it is the case today.
The first paragraph of the two motions increases the pay of ordinary Members to £ 11,750 from 13 June 1980 and £ 13,150 from 13 June 1981. It also increases the parliamentary pay of Ministers and other office holders to £ 6,930 from 13 June 1980 and to £ 7,670 in 1981. There is an element of rationalisation here. There are currently three separate rates of parliamentary salary for Ministers—a result of the previous Government's pay policy. As there is no justification for different

rates and the Review Body recommended a single rate, we are proposing £ 6,930 for all Ministers and office holders.
Paragraph (2) ensures that the increased third stage rate of £ 13,150 will be used for pension purposes and paragraph (3) lays down the supplement payable to cover the 6 per cent. pension contribution on the difference between actual and pensionable pay. For ministerial salaries the corresponding supplement is provided for in a resolution made by the House on 11 July 1979, which still stands.
An amendment on the Order Paper seeks to increase the rate of pay for pension purposes. The Government strongly urge its rejection on these grounds; to accept it would place Members of this House in the invidious position of treating themselves more generously than senior members of the Civil Service and the other public services—[Hon. Members: "Oh."]—who are being treated under the Government's decision on the Boyle report on their pay.
There is the further point that this amendment would put the pension figure above the notional final salary figure for the first time. In the past, while we have accepted that the pension figure should be higher than the staged increase so that those retiring should not suffer from the staging, there has never been a case where the pension figure has been higher than the actual notional figure of the salary. It would cause considerable problems if that discrepancy were to arise.

Mr. Michael English: Is not the right hon. Gentleman aware that there are several Clerks of the House now living whose pensions exceed the present salary of the present Clerk of the House? Is he also aware that it is not relevant to compare us with the rest of the Civil Service? Most of us do not start in our twenties, so perhaps he would care to compare us with judges whose pensions accrue over 15 years. On that basis we are much worse treated.

Mr. St. John-Stevas: I was not making a general comparison with the Civil Service. I was making a comparison within the Government's response to the Boyle recommendations. There is an equity in the recommendations between civil servants and hon. Members of this House, both of whom have had the


Boyle recommendations proportionately reduced.
The third motion increases the limit on the secretarial and research assistance allowance to £ 7,270 for the year ending 31 March 1981 and £ 7,400 for a full year. The House voted on 4 March for an additional sum of 10 per cent. of the existing secretarial allowance to be made available to provide pensions for Members' employees. The Government have accepted the views of the House on this matter and in the current motion on the secretarial allowance the amount payable to provide for employees' pensions has been increased so that it remains 10 per cent. of the main allowance. Certain hon. Members have asked me to confirm that the money for employees' pensions is indeed additional to the money which may be provided for secretarial and research assistance, and I am happy to clarify and confirm that point.

Mr. Terence Higgins: Can my right hon. Friend clarify one point? Leaving the question of pensions for members' secretaries on one side, am I correct in thinking that the Government's proposal, in effect, limits the increase in the secretarial allowance to 9-6 per cent.? If that is so, can my right hon. Friend explain why our secretaries are being asked to set an example to the nation, and how that compares with the increase proposed for Civil Service secretaries?

Mr. St. John-Stevas: Secretarial and ministerial salaries are different, but they are not necessarily perceived as such in the country at large. I am afraid that that is a fact. Although it may not be justified, the public link those two salaries and regard them as connected. That is why it is essential to have a common approach to both these problems.
The fourth motion increases the—

Mr. Higgins: Mr. Higgins rose—

Hon. Members: Give way.

Mr. St. John-Stevas: I have given way a great deal, and I must press on. The fourth motion [Interruption]—

Mr. Speaker: Order. The Minister does not appear to be giving way.

Mr. St. John-Stevas: I shall give way to my right hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth, West (Sir J. Eden).

Sir John Eden: In view of my right hon. Friend's remarks, would it not be fairer and more honourable to revert to the previous position where secretarial and research remunerations were separate?

Mr. St. John-Stevas: That was the original recommendation. It was in response to representations from hon. Members in different parts of the House that I amalgamated them because it was for the convenience of hon. Members. I made that change in accordance with the wishes of the House.

Mr. Higgins: I am grateful—

Mr. Speaker: Order. It was to me that the Minister gave way.

Mr. St. John-Stevas: I did give way to you, Mr. Speaker, but as I have sat down I shall give way to my right hon Friend the Member for Worthing (Mr. Higgins).

Mr. Higgins: I am doubly grateful to my right hon. Friend. Will he now answer my second, point? If our secretaries' allowances are to be limited to 9-6 per cent. in the way that he suggested, will he say, in the Estimates now before us and for which he will ask our approval, what will be the increase in the pay of civil servants' secretaries?

Mr. St. John-Stevas: I cannot answer that question without notice. I shall endeavour to find out the exact reply and or if I am able to catch Mr. Speaker's eye again to reply to any points, that is one with which I shall deal.
The fourth motion increases the winding-up allowance made towards defraying the expenses of secretarial assistance required in connection with parliamentary duties after a person has ceased to be a Member of the House. At present the allowance is limited to £ 500, and in the case of a deceased Member is paid only on the authorisation of his or her personal representative, which can take as long as six months to obtain. The motion increases the limit of the allowance to one-sixth of the secretarial allowance and permits payment under the arrangements approved by Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker's special committee on the winding-up allowance has recommended that authorisation to pay should be obtained from the appropriate party Whip's Office,


which would be required to complete a form of nomination. The Government accept the proposed arrangements. It is a small, but important point. I have come across a great number of cases where distress has been caused because secretaries have been unable to be paid for a considerable time. We want a procedure that can be easily brought into operation to minimise the distress that is inevitably caused to everyone concerned at such a moment.
The final motion seeks approval of a draft Order in Council to implement increases in Ministers' and office holders' salaries. Ministers are not yet in receipt of the second stage of their 1979 increases, so the order brings those into effect as well as updating them by 5 per cent. for Cabinet Ministers and 96 per cent. for other Ministers, as I have already mentioned. The order also makes provision for the updated third stage salaries to be paid with effect from 13 June 1981 and to be used for pension purposes, as for Back Bench Members.
I have said that Cabinet Ministers will get a 5 per cent. increase. That is not entirely accurate because the Prime Minister and the Lord Chancellor have decided not to draw a salary above that of other Cabinet Ministers, which means that they will receive increases well below 5 per cent.
Those are our proposals. I know that they are not good news to all Members of the House. I know that some Members are severely critical of them. I am grateful to the House for the courteous hearing that it has given me. I urge the House to support the measures. They might not be as generous as some hon. Members had hoped, but I believe that in the wider perspective of the interests of the nation as a whole they are the right recommendations. I commend the Government's proposals to the House.

Mr. George Cunningham: One feels like saying "Here we are again", because we have been through this debate and this subject regularly every year for many years. The nature of the discussion does not change much over the years. It is a subject that should be discussed in a serious and non-partisan way, because we

are discusssing how much we should pay ourselves not only as a financial matter but as matter that goes close to the heart of how our democracy works and particularly the relationship between the legislature and the Executive.
In the last year there has been an interesting change in the attitude expressed by some of the media on this subject. Of course, some of the media continue to indulge in straight and blatant criticism of any rise in the remuneration that we vote ourselves. However, other newspapers have, in the past year recognised that this annual painstaking exercise is not conducive to the good government of the country and that we should find some method of settling the matter other than by a debate of this kind taking place with this degree of acrimony each year.
That view was expressed, for example, by the Evening News a week or two back, by The Guardian, by The Economist and by other newspapers which in the past have not expressed that view. In spite of the change of view by some newspapers, inevitably there will be criticism of whatever we decide tonight.
Let us at the start get some of the facts straight so that even some of the journalists can understand—even if they do not bring themselves to print them. In 1964 it was decided that the appropriate remuneration for Members of Parliament should be £ 3,250. If that figure is uprated to take account of price inflation the present salary of Members would be over £ 15,000. No one is suggesting that we adopt a figure of over £ 15,000 tonight.
If we take the figure of £ 4,500 that was chosen in 1972 and uprate it, that produces a figure of over £ 14,000. Again, no-one is suggesting that figure. If we take the 1975 Boyle recommendation of £ 8,000 and uprate that, the figure is over £ 15,000.
The result is that the Boyle recommendation of £ 12,300—even more, the Government's recommendation of £ 11,700—constitutes a reduction of about 20 per cent. in the real value of the salary as decided on three occasions in the last 16 years. The remuneration of Members of Parliament is, therefore, proposed to be about 20 per cent. lower in real terms than was decided at three periods in the last 16 years.

Mr. Alan Clark: I do not know why the hon. Gentleman has taken 1964 as a base line. The figures which he has used are net of the large allowances that we receive today. In 1964 the allowances did not exist.

Mr. Cunningham: It is appalling that the hon. Gentleman should adopt that argument. It is even more appalling that the Prime Minister should have adopted it a few weeks ago when she made her announcement. The effect of the allowances that have been introduced and increased over the years is to permit hon. Members to pay for greater assistance for themselves in doing their job. That is the only proper use of those allowances. It is entirely wrong to say that because we have access to a certain amount of money in order to finance a secretary, that constitutes part of the remuneration of Members.

Mr. John Bruce-Gardyne: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Cunningham: Although this debate may run for four hours, most of us are anxious that it should not necessarily do so. Other hon. Members will have more chance of entering the debate if I do not give way every half minute. All these points can come up in the debate.
I have pointed out that, by comparison with the rise in prices, the salary of Members has fallen considerably. If one takes the rise in earnings, the position is even more stark. Again taking 1964, which I adopt because it happens to be one of the dates when a new decision was made on these matters, the rise in earnings generally since then has been about six-and-a-half-fold. The rise in the remuneration of Members of Parliament has been about three-and-a-half-fold. Earnings generally have risen six and a half times. Salaries of Members of Parliament have risen three and a half times. Those are the basic facts. No one can possibly say that over the years Members of Parliament have failed to give an example in restraint to the remainder of the country.

Mr. Bruce-Gardyne: The hon. Gentleman is overlooking some aspects of the point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton (Mr. Clark). He referred to the services to enable hon. Members to do their job.
However, in 1964 hon. Members did not receive a petrol allowance. [Hon. Members: "Yes, they did."] They did not receive a petrol allowance in their constituencies, or a living away allowance. We have to consider that we are determining what tax the remainder of the community should pay. We should bear in mind the fact that we do not enhance our authority in making those choices if the proportion—[Hon. Members: "Speech."]—of the total receipts that we get, which are free of tax, is deemed to be constantly increasing.

Mr. Cunningham: So far as there is any validity in that point—and that is not very far at all—it should have been made in the hon. Gentleman's own speech. He is mistaken about fact. Free travel to the House and in a Member's constituency was part of the facilities of a Member at that time.
In discussing the matter, I believe that we should try to be calm and to distill some principles to guide us in reaching our decision. A first principle in deciding what should be paid as salary to a Member of Parliament is that we do not want to attract people into the House for the money. We are not in danger of doing that. A second principle is that we should not put off good people, who would otherwise wish to be active in politics, because of the money.
I know that the right hon. Member for Down. South (Mr. Powell) constantly argues that because there is no shortage of people who wish to stand as candidates for Parliament there is no need to make the increase that might be proposed by Lord Boyle. If that were the only principle that we went on we should have no salary for Members of Parliament at all. We should still fill the House. The Benches would not all be empty if we went back to the end of the nineteenth century, when no allowance was paid to Members. It is just that there would be a different kind of Member.

Mr. J. Enoch Powell: That might be preferable.

Mr. Cunningham: They might be Members more inclined to represent a certain section of society, but they would not be a cross-section of society by any standards.
The third principle is that the proper service of the House in this day requires that a large number of hon. Members—not necessarily all—should be prepared to give full time or nearly full time to their parliamentary duties. Many of my hon. Friends have put that more extremely. But all Members of Parliament should give full time to their parliamentary duties. Some people believe that having a number of Members with outside interests is good for the House but this much no one can deny: if there were not a large number of Members giving their full time to their work in the House the place could not possibly work. The system of Select Committees that we introduced last year and that is working well could not function if that were not the case, so that is an important principle.
Another principle as regards the manner in which we take our decisions is this. The House—that means individual Members of the House—should jealously guard the right to take this decision. It is not a decision which should be taken by Governments, either in theory or in practice. Many of us when we were on the Government side of the House were prepared to say it to our own Government as I am prepared to say it to Conservative Back Benchers now.
Finally, another principle that hon. Members need to take account of is that there is a very sensitive ratio between the salary payable to a non-ministerial Member of the House and the salary payable to a Minister in the House. If that ratio is too favourable to a Minister, then there is too much desire to become a Minister and too much reluctance to resign in circumstances when Ministers should resign. One of our virtues is that we are only as human as our constituents. Therefore, if that ratio is got wrong this place is entirely weakened bv it.
I regard it as simply absurd and meriting no further argument that we decide that a Member of Parliament should be paid about the same as, let us say, an assistant borough secretary of a London local authority. It is absurd. I regard it as absurd that we should decide that the appropriate amount to pay to a Member of Parliament is about the middle of the scale of the payment that we make to a principal in the Civil Service,

who is far from the top of the hierarchy of the Civil Service. The Guardian earlier this year said:
There is something wrong with a society that pays its junior civil servants £ 5,000 more than its full-time representatives in Parliament.
I would only disagree with that because I do not think that there is anything wrong with society. There is just something wrong with the Members of Parliament. It is entirely for us. We have no one to blame but ourselves. We are taking a decision which is not only about ourselves but about the good government of the country.
Until now hon. Members have been perfectly justified in directing criticisms at the Government, and I shall, too, in a moment. But after tonight no criticism can be directed at the Government. The Government cannot pass this motion. They have only got 90 votes. It will pass tonight only if Members of Parliament vote for it, and thereafter the entire responsibility for that lies with us as Members and not with the Government.
There are masses of people in the middle and lower ranks of government, of industry, of commerce and of jounalism—both the people who write the stuff and the people who print it—who are paid very considerably more than we think is right for a Member of Parliament. If we want to savour some of the absurdities, I recommend hon. Members to read through the second annual report of the House of Commons Commission, which sets out in great detail the salaries paid to our own staff in the House.
Let us turn to the Department of the Clerk of the House. Of course, we should not dream of equating ourselves with the Clerk of the House. Let us go down to the Clerk Assistant. We must not equate ourselves with him. We could move down the list to the Clerk of Committees, but that is too high. Let us go down the list again to the Second Clerk Assistant. That is too high. Let us go down to the six Principal Clerks Class I. That is too high. Let us consider the three Principal Clerks Class II. That is too high. too. Let us go down to the 15 Deputy Principal Clerks: but that is too high. We are now down to the 29 Senior Clerks. We have found the level.
It is absurd. Hon. Members may wish to look at other parts of the list, such as


the Refreshment Department and the Office of the Speaker. We must have some self-respect, and respect for the position and the responsibility that this job involves. I do not regard this matter lightly. We must prick this annual blister. It cannot go on for ever like this. In 1975 the House decided by a large majority that the salaries of hon. Members should be linked to some position in the public service.
There is an amendment on the Order Paper that expresses the same notion. That notion has been supported outside the House by several newspapers. It is time that the House reiterated its support for that principle. The amendment does not specify any particular grade. It simply states the principle of linkage. Over the years, that has been more or less supported by Governments, and commended to Boyle. Although Boyle rejected it he has always felt obliged to add that if the House wanted to go for it he would gladly advise on the best way of doing so.
The Government say that we must set an example to the nation. As I have explained, we have set an example. We should do so if we were to accept the Boyle recommendation tonight. Uniike his previous reports, in his latest report Boyle himself aimed off. He said that it might be appropriate to do certain things, but that he recommended something less. We all know why he did that. The Prime Minister gave him an assurance.
If the House were to say that those outside the House should settle for 9-6 per cent. at the end of the year in which inflation has reached 20 per cent. and worse, it would be setting an unrealistic standard. At the end of a year of such inflation it would not be right if people were to settle for such a low figure. The saddest and most important feature of this business is unprecedented. In politics, there are not many absolute rules. However, one is that when one gives one's word one keeps it.
Let us distinguish between the undertakings that can be given. If someone stands up during an election campaign and says "We will bring down inflation", that is not an undertaking, but a boast. We all understand that as such. However, when someone says, "This is what the Government will do", it is a promise. T did not think that the day would come

when a British Prime Minister would take an assurance so lightly.
What the Prime Minister said in her letter to Lord Boyle which commissioned the report that we are now discussing was:
I would be grateful if you would undertake this review. It is our intention to accept and implement the recommendations you make.
That had never been said before to Lord Boyle. It was said to Lord Boyle and acted upon by him in reaching his decision. The Leader of the House, who, as he knows, earns great respect in all parts of the House in many ways, is unhappy. But he is not unhappy enough. He said:
This year"—
this is not 12 months ago, but this year on 4 March, speaking to the House as Leader of the House—
the updating of the second stage payment by the Review Body on Top Salaries has been accepted in advance by the Government, and the Government are committed to implementing the updating from this summer. That also will be applied to the third stage of the payment ".—[Official Report, 4 March 1980; Vol. 980, c. 266.]
He went on to indicate the Government's attitude to implementing Boyle in later years. It is significant that he left a loophole in respect of those later years. He did not give a 100 per cent. commitment, which only serves to strengthen the nature of the 100 per cent. commitment which he made in respect of this year.
Let us just get clear what the nature of that promise was. First, the Government were not promising the outcome of this debate. I would be the first to criticise the Government if they ever said "We guarantee that the House will vote for the following." This is not a decision for them to take; it is one for the House to take. Secondly, it is not a question of the Government saying "We will do the following for you." Once again, it is for us to decide, not for them to promise something to us. What the Government were doing was to promise something that they would act upon for their part in so far as Government could achieve it.
It is inconceivable that a British Prime Minister could take so lightly a promise so given. It is inconceivable that a Leader of the House makes an undertaking of that kind, is forced by his colleagues to renege on it and then does not resign. The keeping of promises does


not depend on the subject matter. This is not the most important thing in the world at all. It is very unimportant, but one either keeps promises or one does not, and if one gives them up on little things like that, what use is one's word at all?
It gives me no satisfaction that it is the Conservative Party whose Prime Minister and Leader of the House have done this, because this is such a breach of private morality, which has its place in public affairs, that it shames any of us. It lowers and demeans all of us when a British Prime Minister and a British Leader of the House take so lightly the assurances that they have given.
I come to the resolutions. My hon. Friend the Member for Fife, Central (Mr. Hamilton) has tabled an amendment the effect of which would be to implement the Boyle recommendations for Members but not necessarily for Ministers. I am sure that many Members of the House will feel that that should be supported. It is a view which has been supported outside the House. If we do not do that, certainly the whole issue goes back very much into the melting pot. However, it is a decision upon which each Member must make up his mind.
We then have the proposal on linkage. That repeats the position taken by the House in 1975. It is supported on an all-party basis, across the Floor of the House, and it is something which I strongly urge my right hon. and hon. Friends to support tonight.
We then have a modest proposal to make the pensionable salary the figure adopted by Boyle rather than the figure recommended by the Government. That is what we have always done before over the past five years or so. If that amendment is carried, a consequential amendment will be required to the next section in that motion.
The next amendment, to alter the basis for the pensions of Members from sixtieths to fortieths, would require legislation. If that amendment is passed tonight it will be a clear indication to the Government that it is the wish of the House that that change should be made.
Then we come to the secretarial allowance. I must say to the Leader of the House that there is a fault in the motion

that he has tabled. The proposal is that a sum of money equal to 10 per cent. of the secretarial allowance should be available to Members to pay into schemes to provide pensions for Members' secretaries.
It is the intention of the Leader of the House—for what that is worth—as he announced in reply to a question last Friday, that there should also be a limit on the amount payable in respect of each secretary, that limit being 10 per cent. of the salary paid to that secretary. But the Leader of the House must get it out of his head that he is in a position to instruct the Accountant of the House. The answer that he gave on Friday was the second time that he used the word, that he would "instruct" the Accountant of the House. He has no authority whatsoever to instruct the Accountant of the House, and he must stop using that word. When his civil servants put it to him, he has to refuse to take that advice. He has no authority to limit the payment made to 10 per cent. of individual salaries unless he is prepared to put it in a motion before the House.
My hon. Friend has recommended that the secretarial allowance should be raised to the figure recommended by Boyle, at £ 8,000. It might be felt that there is no point in having Boyle at all if we are going to reject not only the main but every recommendation that he has made.
All these are matters for decisions of the House; that is, for individual Members. It is highly salutary for Governments not always to get their way in the House. Governments are all the better for a good beating, particularly a regular one. If Governments are defeated about once a month it keeps them in pretty good trim. There are one or two motions on the Order Paper for which there is sufficient support on both sides of the House, and it would be right for the House to substitute its decision and judgment for those put forward by the Leader of the House. I commend the second and third motions particularly for support by all who are concerned that the House, and not the Government, should take this decision.

Mr. Alexander W. Lyon: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Would it be in accordance with the wishes of the House if those who have amendments which are


to be called introduce them and then we vote upon them?

Mr. Speaker: I think that we had better follow the procedure that I outlined earlier.

Mr. Edward da Cann: I agreed very much with the opening words of the hon. Member for Islington, South and Finsbury (Mr. Cunningham). His work in this area has long been constructive and is much respected on both sides of the House. But if he will not mind my saying so directly, I thought that he went much too far in the attack that he made upon my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House. It is very good to see that my right hon. Friend has been joined by some of his and my right hon. Friends. It is appropriate that he should not stand alone. The doctrine of collective responsibility is well understood in the House and it could not function without it.
I also agreed with the hon. Member for Islington, South and Finsbury when he said that speeches should be short. Mine certainly will be short.
I greatly regret the necessity for this debate. We may find some odd moments of amusement in it, but it is, on the whole, an unhappy and undignified affair. The tragedy is that its likelihood has long been foreseen.
I think it appropriate to explain the advice that was given to the Front and Back Benches on both sides of the House three years ago, repeated two years ago and one year ago. There was a clear recommendation that we should establish the Boyle committee—that was done—that the committee's reports should be accepted without equivocation and that there should be a commitment from the whole House before the forthcoming general election. If that suggestion had been accepted it would have solved the problem and we should not be having this debate. Alas, it was not accepted by either side and we have had the embarrassment of a year ago and further embarrassment now. My purpose in speaking is to express the hope that it might be avoided on future occasions, and to say how that might be done.
We are much too introspective about this matter. I fancy that the country is much less interested in it than we believe.
But I cannot accept that it can be right that the House should be asked by the Government of the day to accept only those parts of Boyle that suit them at a particular time. We have made the position of Lord Boyle and his colleagues utterly impossible and we should not any longer ask them to carry out for us this odious duty which, apparently, we have in the past lacked the courage to decide exclusively for ourselves.
May I put the matter in a wider context? My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, in her statement of 7 July on reports Nos. 14 and 15 of the Review Body, made it clear that it was appropriate to consider them together. I should like to do that also.
Report No. 14 covered several professions. It may be thought that they were an unlikely mè lange—chairmen and members of nationalised industry boards, members of the high judiciary, senior civil servants, senior officers in the Armed Services—but all people of significance in our State for whom Ministers and the House are responsible.
I should like to refer specifically to the nationalised industry chairmen. There are some general lessons to be drawn from the way that we are treating them. I do not know of another occasion when it will be possible to talk about them. My right hon. Friend the Leader of the House was good enough to say that he would answer any questions put to him in the debate. I put one to him now; how easy is it to fill vacancies at the highest levels in the nationalised industries? We have seen what has been happening lately in certain of them. The British Steel Corporation comes immediately to mind. How many vacancies have there been over the years? How long have they remained unfilled?
I remember the permanent secretary at the Department of Industry making it clear to the Public Accounts Committee when I was chairman that it had been impossible to find a first choice as chairman of the newly nationalised British Shipbuilders because not enough money was being offered. The position of finance director in that company had been vacant for 15 months. I suspect that, much more often than the House knows, we cannot fill top jobs because we do not pay enough.
The Boyle report indicates as much. It says that nationalised industries are:
Some of the largest and technologically most complex industries in the country, indeed in the world.
The House knows that that is so. It is crucial to get the best people to run those industries and it is right to pay a premium, where necessary, for excellence. What is the present position? I quote again from the Boyle report, which contains frequent references to the point:
It has been put to us strongly that the present level of salaries for Chairmen and Board members is generally too low.
Let us take paragraph 11:
Our attention has already been drawn to the difficulty, at current (staged) salaries, of attracting and retaining individuals with the capacity and experience to manage some of the major industries on which the future prosperity of the country depends, in a rapidly changing and increasingly international market. The difficulty has been exacerbated, it was said, by earlier decisions to stage the implementation.
and so on.
The position is entirely clear. Here are these industries; we are responsible for them. There is difficulty in getting the right people to run them. What do we promptly proceed to do? We cut the recommended salary increases for the chairmen and others by about 30 per cent.
We are compounding the difficulty. We are making it all the greater for the future. We are not only establishing a situation in which differentials are harder to maintain but endeavouring to create an example which, in my opinion, simply does not work. The sooner we abandon it for a flat market rate approach the better.
There is a link with this place, is there not? If the nationalised industries are technologically complex and important, Great Britain Limited, or Great Britain Unlimited, is the most important responsibility in the United Kingdom. As the hon. Member for Islington, South and Finsbury so rightly said, this place is changing. There is an increasingly and strongly held view on the Back Benches that we must be more active in living up to our responsibility of exercising a control, a continuous surveillance, over the Executive, especially as the scope of government has grown, as it has so much in recent years.
We must become more professional. Some of us may like that; some of us may dislike it. None the less, it is the fact. We are in a position of transition, as we establish new Select Committees to help us carry out that work, as we come to talk, as we surely shall this year, about other devices, such as the pre-examination of legislation before it goes to its Standing Committee stage.
It is right that my right hon. Friend should tell us "Certainly we shall provide the oportunity for hon. Members to exercise their responsibilities better, in the name of the people. What is more, I shall provide the facilities for them to do this work." For too long they have been lacking. It must be right, for instance, to give right hon. and hon. Members the opportunity to travel. I could quote the names of individual hon. Members on both sides of the House who have travelled to, for example, Northern Ireland many times at their own expense.
How right my right hon. Friend the Member for Worthing (Mr. Higgins) was to say that it is most extraordinary to put up the salaries of secretaries in the Civil Service by 20 per cent. and limit ourselves when we have work to do.
I believe in Parliament. I want to see it work better and more effectively, in the national interest. That has been my aim and ambition for many years. My reason for disappointment over this matter is not only the embarrassment to which I have referred but my feeling that in doing what the Government propose tonight, if that is what is eventually agreed, we are not advancing this process as rapidly or as effectively we might.
The people of this nation trust us to do a responsible job. Alas, we have not always been doing it. We must, over the years, taking the long view, encourage people of ability, experience and judgment to come here—not to come here for the income, of course, but we cannot ignore that side of life. The nation has no right to ask that a thorough job be done on its behalf on the cheap. There is a limit to the sacrifices that should be asked of men and women in the public service.
How do we stand? The hon. Gentleman referred to newspaper comment. The Times commented a short time ago that British Members of Parliament were
absolutely and relatively the lowest paid of any in an industrial country".


The Guardian said:
MPs remain the lowest paid of any Western State except Ireland.
Quite rightly, my right hon. Friend himself, in our last debate on the subject, pointed out that the salary had not been brought properly up to date for seven years.
When Boyle reported to us a year ago, Members' remuneration was still at a level below that which a top London secretary could earn. I do not know what the right figure is—£ 15,000 a year has been mentioned. I think that it ought to be a good deal higher. Be that as it may, what we are asked to accept now is some 20 per cent. below that figure. Let the nation note that.
It is true that Members' conditions have been much improved, and we have much to thank the Leader of the House for in that regard. But it is fair to state that the improvement began from an absurdly low level, and it is also fair to state—let me say it plainly to the House—that the conditions have improved only because the Parliamentary Labour Party, led by the right hon. Member for Sunderland, North (Mr. Willey) and his predecessor, Lord Cledwyn Hughes, and the 1922 Committee have come together to try to make things better. T thank my colleagues most warmly for all they have done in that regard.
It may be that some hon. Members feel that they do not need a salary increase. Very well—let them not draw it. And let them also not advertise the fact. I do not know your view, Mr. Speaker, but I know too many hon. Members who do need the salary increase. I also wish to say how much I regret that Ministers are being asked to make a greater sacrifice than Members. Frankly, I do not think that that is fair.
I have said before, and I repeat, that there is no doubt, as the Governor of the Bank of England was remarking upstairs this evening to the Select Committee on the Treasury and Civil Service, that we are in a recession, and, of course, my right hon. Friend is right—the spotlight is on Members of Parliament. So perhaps only one course is open to us today. I certainly would not vote for the Boyle recommendation at this moment. [Hon. Members: "Why not?"] We should have had it before, but that moment has

passed and gone. But other things need to be said.
I hope that the House will vote in favour of the proposal standing in the names of right hon. and hon. Members on both sides—that we should put up the pension to the notional level, as we did before. It is not fair to take out of those who are in the evening of their lives the necessity of present times.
I do not care for pecking orders or for comparabilities, but I think that the hon. Member for Islington South, and Finsbury was right in what he said about the need to look again at some form of link. I would prefer a basket in accordance with the evidence that some of us gave to Boyle a short while ago. That is the way to do it, I believe, and I think we have to aim also at settling the right figure and the right link for the period of a Parliament.
My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister also said—and I think that she was entirely right—that these are matters that we must decide for ourselves.

Mr. Alan Clark: My right hon. Friend says that he thinks that we should decide the matter for a period of a Parliament. There might be many in the House who would agree with him. But would it not be more seemly if we decided it at the end of one Parliament to cover our successors in the next?

Mr. du Cann: My hon. Friend is entirely right. That is precisely what some of us recommended at the end of the last Parliament, and I would recommend it now for the end of this Parliament, whenever that may come.

Mr. Nick Budgen: Is my right hon. Friend saying that he is in favour of a sum being fixed at the beginning of a Parliament and that, no matter what the rate of inflation, it should not rise at all during that Parliament?

Mr. du Cann: That is not what I said, but I would be ready to come to some arrangement of that sort in a way that I am about to suggest to the House.
My hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton (Mr. Clark) is entirely right. Let us try to settle this issue at the end of a Parliament for the next Parliament. Let us take responsibilty away from the Front Benches. It is a


House of Commons matter. Let us establish a small group of Members of experience to handle this for us and to decide. We have plenty of wisdom and plenty of experience in this House. Those hon. Members who have been privileged to be in this House for many years have a great sense of responsibility.
Let us hope this time that we can get away from the dé jà vu to which reference has been made. Let us make certain that we settle the matter once and for all.

Mr. Frederick Willey: I think the House wants to expedite the debate and I shall be very brief.
We have had two fine speeches and the position is clear. I give every credit to the right hon. Member for Taunton (Mr. du Cann). We have been trying to reach an agreement about what we can achieve on behalf of the House. I should have expected that the Leader of the House would accept what we propose. It is unfair to use the pay roll vote to try to defeat what is, I think, the general view on each side of the House of what we can do.
We are suggesting no more than that we should be fair to those who receive pensions by preserving and maintaining the present system. Secondly, we have suggested turning to a system of linkage.
We have drafted our proposal widely so that the Government have a wide discretion. We do that in the light of our experience. We have negotiated with the Boyle committee and we know the difficulties. We know that the main difficulty that faces the Boyle committee is that its recommendations have, as it said, to be swiftly implemented. That has not happened and that is what causes the trouble. We want to avoid that.
I should have thought that if the House could accept the amendment on linkage we should be able to do just what the right hon. Gentleman has proposed. We could then have discussions with the Leader of the House to determine the most effective way of dealing with the matter. If we did that we should then at last have taken the matter out of the area of public controversy. That is the objective.
We have gone a long way and made a lot of progress in the last year or two. I do not want to be disrespectful to the Leader of the House, but these are the things that we ought to do, and do urgently. I hope that the House will be able to come to this decision.

Several hon. Members: Several hon. Members rose—

Mr. Speaker: Mr. Hugh Dykes. (Hon. Members: "Vote."] Order. It is very difficult for me to ascertain whether it is the will of the House that the Question be put. [Interruption.] Order. We can settle it very easily. I cannot settle it. Someone could propose it.

Mr. Ogden: Mr. Ogden rose in his place and claimed to move, That the Question be now put.

Mr. Speaker: There are two opinions and we have had only two speeches. I shall give the House the chance to vote if it wishes. The time will be taken out of the four hours if the House divides. I think that we had better move on for a while. Mr. Hugh Dykes.

Mr. Hugh Dykes: I think there has been—[Interruption.] If I detect the feeling of the House correctly, although hon. Members may wish to come to a vote in due course, without taking as long as some might have expected, none the less there is, I think, a feeling that there should be some further debate. [Interruption.] There are a number of things that should be said very briefly before the vote is taken.
First, there is a sense in which the House has continually to say to itself and to the public outside that we regard these occasions as deeply embarrassing, awkward and, indeed, offensive. There is nothing more awkward than for hon. Members to have to explain outside that we have a relatively crowded House at 11.45 pm tonight on this subject whereas on most occasions at this hour when we are debating matters of national importance there is nothing like this number of hon. Members present. That is a reflection of the feeling that we should try once and for all to exorcise this matter from our debates and decisions, either through the proposal of my right hon. Friend the Member for Taunton (Mr. du Cann) for a committee of Members—[Interruption]. As a relatively new Member, I think that


I am entitled to express a view about the difficulties that hon. Members who have been in the House for a fairly short time face because of the impasse on Members' pay.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Taunton suggested a special committee of Members. Other hon. Members would prefer the matter to be considered by an independent review body. But we all feel deeply sympathetic to the Boyle machinery and to Lord Boyle for the way in which his independent and objective study has been undermjned. Whether the reasons for the undermining from the Treasury Bench were correct is another matter for another debate. It is right for the House to reach a decision, which should be more than merely an expression of opinion on amendment (h) principally and on other related amendments.

Several Hon. Members: Several Hon. Members rose—

Mr. Ogden: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. With respect to the hon. Gentleman, I have listened to these arguments for 16 years, and the only way to decide anything is to vote. I beg to move, That the Question be now put.

Question put. That the Question be now put:—

The House divided: Ayes 257, Noes 33.

Mr. Speaker: I wish to make a brief statement. Because the House made it clear to me that it wished me to accept the closure, I now deem the amendment in the name of the hon. Member for Fife, Central (Mr. Hamilton) to have been moved. That will mean that the House will vote now on whether we have full Boyle or not.

Mr. William Hamilton: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I do not think that anybody should deem that I do anything, least of all move an amendment without discussing it. My point is serious. At the outset of the debate, Mr. Speaker, you suggested a form for debate which would ensure that hon. Members like myself would have the opportunity to make their points. Hon. Members who heard that obviously did

not dissent from that course. It may well have been that those who sought to move the closure of the debate did not realise what the House had agreed. I am thereby precluded from exercising my right to speak to my amendment. Because my amendment was fairly narrowly drawn on Members' salaries only, I was not able to speak to that amendment on subsequent amendments. Mr. Speaker said that the debate would last for four hours. I hope that, at some time during the course of that four hours, I shall have the opportunity to speak. I shall endeavour to bring myself in order and raise the points that I intended to raise on my original amendment.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. Gentleman is quite correct. The House has accepted the closure on his amendment only. We have now come to amendment (a), which is "full Boyle".

Amendment proposed: (a), in line 1, leave out from 'House' to the end of the Question and add

'the salaries and pensions paid to Members of Parliament in respect of service on and after 13th June 1980 should be those recommended in Report No. 15 of the Review Body on Top Salaries.'.—[Mr. William Hamilton.]

Question put. That the Amendment be made:—

The House divided: Ayes 137, Noes 231.

Mr. Peter Bottomley: Although even a short contribution now is unpopular, Mr. Speaker, I shall make it. I am in the habit of making contributions, welcome or not, in the cause of free debate. I should like to make four brief points. The first is that there is no embarrassment in discussing our pay. The embarrassment relates to the messes that we make in settling it each year in this haphazard way.
Secondly, as as already been said by the hon. Member for Islington, South and Finsbury (Mr. Cunningham), the question of linkage has already been determined in 1975. Personally, I would take it very amiss if the Government now decide to oppose a decision which the House has already taken. My third point ties in with this, and anticipates debates next year and the year after. It is that the Government should put the Boyle recommendations before the House and leave it to the House itself to table an amendment to reduce those recommendations. I believe that it is wrong for the Government to do that.
My final point is my own recommendation for the future. I do not believe that the House should decide at the end of a Parliament what the pay should be for the next Parliament. Instead, it should, early on in the present Parliament, decide what the pay should be at the beginning of the next one. In order to get round the problem of committing a future Parliament, I believe that the form of words next year should be to the effect that on the last possible day of this Parliament,

or at a preceding general election, the salary should be put at the appropriate level.
My view is that during a Parliament Members should not receive full compensation for inflation. I think that they should receive increases representing half the increase in inflation. In that way we make sure that at least at the beginning of each Parliament new Members, whether "retreads" or not, receive the right amount of money. We would also set an example during the currency of the Parliament to which we are elected.

Mr. Hooley: I would have thought that one of the principles to which this House was dedicated was full and fair debate. I should like to follow what the hon. Member for Woolwich, West (Mr. Bottomley) has just said. By rejecting Boyle, this House has rejected the principles of an independent review body. It will be nonsensical in the future to ask distinguished men or women in public life to sit and deliberate or calculate the salaries and conditions of Members of Parliament, only for them to make their recommendations to this House and to have them thrown out on the say-so of the Government Whips. That is a quite intolerable situation, and we have now discredited one very valuable means of determining the remuneration of Members of this House.
It follows that we must seek some alternative method. Clearly, there are only two options available. One is simply to decide for ourselves what we wish to pay ourselves, without any reference to any external body or index whatever. I think that most hon. Members would reject that idea. The alternative is some form of linkage—some sort of automatic calculator—related to other salaries, either in public life or elsewhere. Personally, I think that the proposition now before us is somewhat narrowly calculated, but I believe that the principle is of enormous importance, and I hope that the House will vote for it.

Mr. Dykes: The House wishes to move to a Division, and I wish to make only two quick points. It is right that we have a short debate, and I wish to make two points in support of what has been said by my hon. Friend the Member for


Woolwich, West (Mr. Bottomley) and the hon. Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Mr. Hooley). This is a different matter from the previous vote.
The assertion and exhortation to us is that we should set an example. I agree. However, we should consider the effect of the example that was set last year. It is interesting that the second stage automatic increase passed wholly unnoticed in the public mind, and that it is only the row about the percentage increase on the Boyle adjustment which has got into the newspapers as a result of the embarrassment of this House.
We can get off this hook by going back to the memory, the decisive vote and the enormous majority of 1975 in favour of linkage—to assistant secretary or whatever may be suitable—and deciding that that will be the system from now on. Whatever grade may be chosen, that must be the rational way for the House to decide the matter. I support the amendment.

Question put, That the amendment be made:—

The House divided: Ayes 225, Noes 159.

See Division 413

in column 225

Question accordingly agreed to.

See Division 414

in column 229

Question accordingly negatived.

Mr. Speaker: I now call the right hon. Member for Sunderland, North (Mr. Willey) to move his amendment formally, if he wishes.

Mr. Frank Hooley: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I am somewhat bewildered by the contradictory decisions that the House has taken about this debate. Is it in order to continue to debate amendments (g), (h) and (i) and motion No. 4 and the two related amendments?

Mr. Speaker: It will be in order, unless the House later decides that the time has come to bring the debate to a conclusion. I remind the House that, although there were loud cries for the closure, we have to bear in mind that minorities also have a right to be heard.

Amendment proposed: (g), in line 22, leave out ' £ 13,150' and insert ' £ 13,750'.—[Mr. Willey.]

Question put, That the amendment be made:—

The House divided: Ayes 213, Noes 174.

See Division 415

in column 231

Question accordingly agreed to.

Amendment proposed: (h), in line 26, at end add—
'(4) In the light of the continued difficulty in providing fairly for the salaries of Members of this House, the salaries of Members should be regulated to correspond with the amounts of the salary paid to a specified grade in the Public Service.'.—[Mr. Willey.]

See Division 416

in column 235

Question accordingly agreed to.

Mr. Charles R. Morris: I beg to move amendment (i), in line 26, at end add—
'(4) The annual amount of the pension payable to an honourable Member shall be a sum equal to the aggregate of the following amounts, that is to say—

(a) an amount equal to one-fortieth of the relevant terminal salary multiplied by the number of complete years comprised in his aggregate period of reckonable service as a Member, and
(b) an amount bearing the same proportion to one-fortieth of the relevant terminal salary as the number of days comprised in that period after the end of the last complete year comprised in it bears to three hundred and sixty-five.'.

Accepting the clear will of the House for a speedy conclusion to our deliberations, I move the amendment very briefly. I believe that the basis of computing Members' pensions should reflect the realities of parliamentary life, in the in-

teresls not only of Members but of their families and dependants.

Question put, That the amendment be made:—

The House divided: Ayes 200, Noes 152.

See Division 417

in column 237

Question accordingly agreed to.

Mr. Charles R. Morris: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. May 1, through you, ask the Leader of the House, in keeping with his responsibilities, to make a statement indicating that he accepts the will of the House on the amendment that the House has just passed?

Mr. St. John-Stevas: As you will appreciate, Mr. Speaker, and as the right hon. Gentleman will appreciate, there are very complex questions involved in pensions. I give the right hon. Gentleman the assurance that we shall consider the position. I shall come to the House with a statement on this matter at the earliest opportunity.

Mr. George Cunningham: Further to the point of order, Mr. Speaker. I take it that what the Leader of the House has just said relates to the amendment which has just been carried and that one alone, on account of the fact that to effect the change for which we have voted would require legislation. I take it that he would not adopt the same attitude to the previous amendments which have been carried and that the Government will accept those amendments without question, and any others that we carry later tonight which do not require legislation, in accordance with the earlier statement of the Leader of the House that all these matters—leaving aside the pension one which needs legislation—are for the House to decide.
Will the Leader of the House say, therefore, that in respect of those other matters which do not call for legislation he will be taking away his motion No. 3 and bringing it forward in a revised form to fit the amendments which have been carried by the House and any others which might be carried later this evening?

Mr. St. John-Stevas: I shall not be moving motion No. 3 tonight. In the light of the decisions that have been taken, it


will be necessary for a major Government statement to be made.

That, in the opinion of this House, the following provisions about salaries and pensions of Members of this House should be made:—


(1) The salary payable to Members of each of the descriptions in the first column of the following Table-


(a) in respect of service on and after 13th June 1980 and before 13th June 1981 shall be at the yearly rate specified in relation to that description in the second column of that Table; and


(b) in respect of service on and after 13th June 1981 shall be at the yearly rate specified in relation to that description in the third column of that Table.


TABLE


Description of Member
Yearly rate of salary from 13th June 1980 to 12th June 1981
Yearly rate of salary from 13th June 1981



£
£


1. Member not within paragraph 2.
11,750
13,150


2. Member or Officer of this House receiving a salary under the Ministerial and Other Salaries Act 1975 or a pension under section 26 of the Parliamentary and Other Pensions Act 1972.
6,930
7,670


(2) The ordinary salary of every Member in respect of service on and after 13th June 1980 shall be regarded for pension purposes as being at the rate of £ 13,750.


(3) Any Member, except one in whose case no deduction is required to be made under section 3 or 4 of the Act of 1972, shall be credited by way of supplement to his salary payable in respect of service on or after 13th June 1980 and before 13th June 1981, with amounts at the yearly rate of £ 84.


(4) In the light of the continued difficulty in providing fairly for the salaries of Members of this House, the salaries of Members should be regulated to correspond with the amounts of the salary paid to a specified grade in the Public Service.


(5) The annual amount of the pension payable to an honourable Member shall be a sum equal to the aggregate of the following amounts, that is to say-


(a) an amount equal to one-fortieth of the relevant terminal salary multiplied by the number of complete years comprised in his aggregate period of reckonable service as a Member, and


(b) an amount bearing the same proportion to one-fortieth of the relevant terminal salary as the number of days comprised in that period after the end of the last complete year comprised in it bears to three hundred and sixty-five.'.

MEMBERS' OFFICE, SECRETARIAL AND RESEARCH ALLOWANCE

Motion made, and Question proposed,

That, in the opinion of this House—

(a) the limit on the allowance payable to a Member of this House in respect of the aggregate expenses incurred by him for his parliamentary duties as general office expenses, on secretarial assistance and on research assistance should be £ 7,270 for the year ending 31st March 1981 and £ 7,400 for any subsequent year; and
(b) provision should be made to enable each Member in receipt of the allowance to contribute sums, not exceeding in the year ending 31st March 1981 £ 727 and in any subsequent year £ 740, to an approved pension scheme for the provision of pensions or other benefits for or in respect of persons in the payment of whose salaries such expenses are incurred by him.—[Mr. St. John-Stevas.]

Main Question, as amended, put and agreed to.

Resolved,

Mr. Alfred Dubs: I wish to move amendments (q), (s), (w) and (y).

Mr. Speaker: The hon. Gentleman can move only one amendment at a time. We shall see how he gets on, and how we get on.

Mr. Dubs: In that case, I beg to move amendment (q), in paragraph (a), leave out ' £ 7,270' and insert ' £ 7,859'.

Mr. Terence Higgins: The House will recollect that I asked the Leader of the House for some information which is relevant to this amendment. Clearly, if we are to ask the country, as we have done, to follow our example, there is an argument for saying that the House should be consistent with that


decision in matters within its control. We do not want to say that we shall set an example, ask our secretaries to set an example, and then find that the Government are not following it in other areas of public service, for example on the question of the salaries of secretaries in the Civil Service. Therefore, I hope that the Leader of the House, having had well over an hour to ascertain the information, will be able to give us that information. If he cannot, will he assure the House that there is no question of Estimates being presented for increases exceeding 18 or 20 per cent. in Civil Service secretaries' pay?

Mr. English: The right hon. Member for Worthing (Mr. Higgins) has well illustrated the problems that this motion and its amendments raise.
The Boyle report recommended that the first van Straubenzee report should be implemented. A number of hon. Members do not want a secretarial allowance. We merely want the same privileges as Officers of the House and Ministers. We want our secretaries to be paid by the Exchequer, and we want secretarial expenses paid, not to us, but in the way that they are paid in an ordinary business or in the Government. Some hon. Members object to that, and they would prefer to have the money. The trouble is that we do not know where the money goes in every case. The majority of hon. Members have a secretary, and considerable secretarial expenses, but there are suggestions that not every hon. Member does.
On a previous occasion the hon. Member for Battersea. South (Mr. Dubs) moved an amendment to secure that the Boyle report should be implemented, but he did not press it to a Division. It would be more satisfactory to have an opportunity of voting on whether we want to allow Members—not to force them—to have their secretaries paid by the Exchequer, and not have a system of receiving money and then paying it out. That system is open to abuse.

Mr. Higgins: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Are we to have a reply from the Leader of the House?

1 am

Mr. St. John-Stevas: I shall reply briefly to the two points. I regret that there is no simple comparison between Civil Service secretaries and secretaries

in this House. That is because there are different grades of Civil Service secretaries and their pay is affected by a variety of proficiency allowances—

Mr. Faulds: My secretary is very proficient.

Mr. St. John-Stevas: In addition, the pay for Members' secretaries varies from Member to Member. One cannot make a direct comparison. The best I can say to my right hon. Friend the Member for Worthing (Mr. Higgins) is that we shall pursue this matter further and let him have further figures.
On the point raised by the hon. Member for Nottingham, West (Mr. English), it is possible, if hon. Members wish, for their secretaries to be paid directly from the Fees Office. I have encouraged hon. Members to use that facility and I am pleased to say that an increasing number of them are doing so. However, it should be left to hon. Members to decide for themselves.
Mr. English: What is not possible is to have one's secretary paid and pensioned on the same basis as a secretary in the Civil Service. There is, on an agency basis, for a charge of, I think, some 5 per cent., the possibility of having her paid directly by the Fees Office—

Mr. Speaker: Order. Is the hon. Gentleman asking a question, because he has exhausted his right to speak?

Question put, That the amendment be made:—

The House divided: Ayes 187, Noes 168.

See Division 418

in column 241

Question accordingly agreed to.

Amendments made: (s), in paragraph (a), leave out ' £ 7,400' and insert

' £ 8,000'.

(w), in paragraph (b), leave out ' £ 727' and insert ' £ 786'.

(y), in paragraph (b), leave out ' £ 740' and insert ' £ 800'.—[Mr. Dubs.]

Main question, as amended, put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That, in the opinion of this House—

(a) the limit on the allowance payable to a Member of this House in respect of the aggregate expenses incurred by him for


his parliamentary duties as general office expenses, on secretarial assistance and on research assistance should be £ 7,859 for the year ending 31st March 1981 and £ 8,000 for any subsequent year; and
(b) provision should be made to enable each Member in receipt of the allowance to contribute sums, not exceeding in the year ending 31st March 1981 £ 786 and in any subsequent year £ 800, to an approved pension scheme for the provision of pensions or other benefits for or in respect of persons in the payment of whose salaries such expenses are incurred by him.

MEMBERS' SECRETARIAL WINDING-UP ALLOWANCE

Resolved,

That, in the opinion of this House,—

(a) provision should be made under arrangements approved by Mr. Speaker for an allowance to be made towards defraying the expenses of secretarial or research assistance which, after a person has ceased to be a Member of this House, is still required in connection with his Parliamentary duties: and
(b) the limit on that allowance should be one-sixth of the amount which, for the year in which that person ceases to be a Member, is the limit on the allowance payable to a Member of this House in respect of the aggregate expenses incurred by him for his Parliamentary duties as general office expenses, on secretarial assistance and on research assistance; and
(c) the allowance should be paid to the person who has ceased to be a Member or. if he has died, to his personal representatives or a person nominated by him or selected under the arrangements approved by Mr. Speaker.—[Mr. St. John-Stevas.]

MINISTERIAL AND OTHER SALARIES AND PENSIONS

Motion made, and Question proposed.

That the draft Ministerial and other Salaries and Pensions Order 1980, which was laid before this House on 14 July, be approved.—[Mr. St. John-Stevas.]

Mr. English: I wish to ask the Leader of the House a simple question. What is the Prime Minister's salary? The reason why I want to know the Prime Minister's salary is that it has been extremely difficult to find out precisely what that salary is at the moment.
The Library, after considerable research, did not come up with an official answer but provided the answer in Whitaker's Almanack—that the Prime Minister's salary is £ 27,000. I understand that it is made up of £ 22,000 for

having the offices of Prime Minister and First Lord of the Treasury and £ 5,000 for being a Member of Parliament.
On the last occasion when we discussed a Boyle report on Ministers' salaries, the Prime Minister said that she would not take an increase in salary. That sounded generous and noble, but in the 1979 order there was a provision for increasing the salaries of office-holders—the members of the Cabinet other than the Prime Minister and the Lord Chancellor—but there was no provision for an increase in the salary of the office of Prime Minister.
I do not dispute the right of the right hon. Lady the Prime Minister not to take a salary provided by law. We all have that right. In the last Government the then Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, now Lord Lever, did not take his salary. He was entitled to do that. However, under the 1979 order some difficulties would have been caused if the right hon. Lady's successor, whether Labour or Conservative, did not have an outside interest. The office of Prime Minister's salary was not raised, which is different from saying that as an individual one does not want to take a salary out of the Exchequer.

Several Hon. Members: Several Hon. Members rose—

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bernard Weatherill): Order. It is out of order for several hon. Members to be on their feet at the same time.

Mr. English: Perhaps it is right that the House has just rejected a recommendation that we should not raise the pensionable salary of Members of Parliament. The 1979 order raised, and the current order raises, the pensionable salary of the Prime Minister. It is peculiar that the right hon. Lady should say that she does not wish the office of Prime Minister's salary to be raised but that she wishes the pensionable salary to be raised so that when she or her successors retire they—and she—receive a higher pension.
The Government made a statement in June referring to the implementation after the next election of the Boyle recommendations on the Prime Minister's salary. The statement was tempered by a comment about not putting her salary above that recommended for her Cabinet colleagues. Consequently, she said that she would take no increase in ministerial


salary until 1981. We are now presented with an order which increases her salary from 1980 to 1981. It is significant that since that was mentioned on 21 June 1979 the year 1981 has not been mentioned.
In this order the salary of the office of Prime Minister is raised from 1980-81 and not from 1981, as the right hon. Lady earlier suggested. As I have pointed out. it is entirely up to the right hon. Lady—

Mr. Alexander W. Lyon: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I beg to move, That the Question be now put.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: I sense that the hon. Member for Nottingham, West (Mr. English) is about to come to a conclusion.

Mr. English: It is entirely up to the right hon. Lady not to take something provided for by law, but that was true on the previous occasion, when she provided by law that anyone holding her office should not get an increase. The Government are now providing that anyone holding that office should get an increase.
There has been no further statement from the right hon. Lady contradicting or changing the statement that was earlier made. On one occasion she said that she was not taking a salary increase that was not there for her to take. She is now making no statement about whether she is taking a salary increase that will be there for her to take. I believe that we are entitled to know the answer to that question and also why there is the strange contradiction between the 1979 order and the 1980 order.

Mr. St. John-Stevas: It may assist the hon. Member for Nottingham, West (Mr. English) if I state that the Prime Minister's current salary is £ 22,000 plus the parliamentary allowance. The proposed salary from July 1980, updated to the second stage, will be £ 23,500. The proposed salary, updated to the third stage on 13 June 1981, will be £ 26,250, as opposed to the national salary that was suggested by the Boyle committee, which would come to £ 30,250.

Mr. George Cunningham: If the Government attach as much importance to

cutting public expenditure in the entire area as they have indicated, should they not withdraw the motion and bring it back with lower figures, in the light of decisions taken by the House on other matters this evening, so that there is no extra cost to public funds?

Question put:—

The House divided: Ayes 183, Noes 46.

That the draft Ministerial and other Salaries and Pensions Order 1980, which was laid before this House on 14 July, be approved.

Mr. George Cunningham: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. We have now come to the end of what was intended to be one unified debate on these matters. The Leader of the House told the House earlier that the Government would have to consider the situation in the light of the defeats that they have suffered tonight. However, on previous occasions the Leader of the House and the Prime Minister have stated very firmly that most of the decisions that we have taken tonight are very much matters for the House to take. They have said that they would make their recommendations, but that these decisions were for the House to take.
With the exception of the decision taken with regard to pensions—that is, the one-fortieth and one-sixtieth point—which is a matter that requires legislation and which is therefore in an entirely different category to the rest, it would be natural and normal for the Leader of the House to say that the Government accept the decision of the House on the matters on which the Government have said it is for the House to decide, and that they would bring forward the main effective motion—which was on the Order Paper, but withdrawn—in an amended form, to fit the decisions taken by the House. There is no reason why, in accordance with precedent, the Leader of the House should not say that he stands by his earlier statement, and the Prime Minister's statement, that they will accept the will of the House on these matters. I hope, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that you will give him an opportunity to do so.

Mr. St John-Stevas: Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I stand by everything that I said in the course of the debate and what my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has said. We shall have to consider carefully the situation that has now arisen and we shall make a statement to the House as soon as possible.

See Division 419

in column 243

Question accordingly agreed to.

Resolved,

GLUE SNIFFING

Motion made, and Question proposed. That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Berry.]

Mr. Jack Straw: It is never easy to follow such an exciting debate as the one that we have just had. I thought that I would have some difficulty in speaking over the hubbub of hon. Members leaving the Chamber. However, I am grateful to my now absent hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham, West (Mr. English) for his assistance in emptying the Chamber so effectively.
Two years ago, glue sniffing was sufficient of a problem in my constituency for the social services department, in cooperation with the police and the area health authority, to issue leaflets to parents, teachers and young people about its dangers. For a period it died down, but now, I am afraid, its practice has started to increase. Residents in one area of the town—Daisyfield—have become so concerned about the disruption to their neighbourhood caused by glue sniffers who have broken into bricked-up houses and acted in a disruptive and anti-social way that, led by one of the residents—Mr. Mohammed Desai, of Ross Street—they have produced a petition about it. Their councillor, Mr. William Taylor, who is also a youth and community worker with extensive knowledge of young people in the town, has taken the matter up, and it was he who asked for my help.
It was, therefore, this immediate constituency interest that led to my request for this Adjournment debate. Subsequently, the Lancashire Evening Telegraph conducted an investigation into glue sniffing within the town and came up with some detailed and pretty horrifying evidence from children, some as young as 12, who appear to be habitual glue

sniffers. From all that I have read and heard, I do not believe that my constituency is any better or worse than any other urban areas. Since this debate was announced hon. Members from both sides of the House have expressed their concern about its incidence and have mentioned the worries of their constituents. The fact that even at this late hour there are as many hon. Members as there are in the Chamber indicates the concern that is shared across the Floor.
When my hon. Friend the Member for Coatbridge and Airdrie (Mr. Dempsey) held a similar Adjournment debate two years ago he pointed out that 600 young people under the age of 18—I think in one year—in the Strathclyde region had come to the attention of the authorities as having been examined and treated for glue sniffing. I pay tribute to the work of my hon. Friend, because it is he above all other hon. Members who has pursued this problem and tried to suggest solutions to it.
No one should be in any doubt about the dangers inherent in glue sniffing, as well as the dangers inherent in the inhalation of other solvents. Glue is sniffed, as I think we all understand, because it can produce a sensation of being "high" and of pleasant hallucinations. If young people are leading rather aimless lives, and are truahting—there is a close relationship between children who are glue sniffing and those who are truanting—or if they are a bit older and face the prospect of no job, one can perhaps understand why they may seek such an escape.

Mr. Tim Eggar: Will the hon. Gentleman consider the fact that, certainly in my constituency, it is most unfortunate that glue sniffing has been associated with excessive amounts of vandalism and that older children have engaged in glue sniffing which has involved young children of 8 or 9 years of age?

Mr. Straw: Yes. One of the worrying things about this is that in some cases it involves children as young as that. Certainly, the evidence of the social services department in my constituency is that it is children in the 11 to 14-year-old bracket who can be particularly at risk.
There are many unpleasant and potentially dangerous side effects from glue


sniffing. Users can become violent and aggressive, but because they do not know what they are doing they can place themselves in danger, at risk of accidents, and can cause disturbance, inconvenience and violence to others.
Last Saturday the London Broadcasting Company programme "Jellybone", which is broadcast to young listeners, held a live half-hour phone-in to ask the views of its listeners about the problem of glue sniffing and how it might be tackled. I shall detain the House by reading two of the verbatim comments of children who phoned that programme.
Gary, who is aged 14 and lives in Islington, said:
quite a few kids in my class have been glue sniffing and the effects on them are something rotten. They've been having fights with other kids and they haven't known what they've been doing… at first they don't know what they're doing, then they go into a trance and if you go over to them… they just blow up and start kicking out and hitting you.
A girl, Coleen, aged 15, from Bexley-heath, said:
quite a lot of them in school do it, and there's quite a lot of trouble when it happens. They become violent and moany and they sweat.
Those are only the short-term effects. The Minister, in answer to a question in May, said that those short-term effects
 are usually reversible but may be severe, and even, in rare instances, fatal.
But he went on to point out:
Chronic effects may include damage, which may be irreversible, to bodily organs and the nervous system." [Official Report, 15th May 1980; Vol. 984, c. 549.]
So the dangers from glue sniffing can be very severe.
We may be in no doubt about the dangers of glue sniffing, but there is a great deal of doubt as to how big the problem is and whether, throughout the country and in particular localities, it is on the increase or is decreasing. The reason why we are in doubt about the size of the problem is that neither centrally nor on a co-ordinated basis are figures collected of the number of persons admitted to hospital suffering from the effects of glue sniffing or who come to the attention of the police.
I know why these figures have not been collected centrally. In the case of hospital admissions, it is because glue sniffing does not form part of the international classifi-

cation of diseases and in the case of the police, it is because glue sniffing is not a crime, and I am certainly not proposing that it should be. Therefore, police practices in the recording of incidents of glue sniffing vary greatly.
I do not believe that the international classification of diseases should be regarded as a kind of bureaucratic bar to hospitals being encouraged to collect these figures where necessary. I believe that the Home Office should follow the lead of some police forces, including Strathclyde, which collect on a central basis figures relating to children who come to their attention suffering from the effects of glue sniffing.

Mr. William Waldegrave: As a member of the inner London juvenile court who has some experience of this problem, the hon. Gentleman might consider it sensible to encourage the Minister to collect figures from local social services departments, too. Perhaps he is coming to that point. This is normally how the courts come across these problems.

Mr. Straw: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that suggestion. I hope that the Minister will bear it in mind.
The figures are important not because they would be accurate in absolute terms but because they would indicate rising or falling trends in areas and nationally.
The second question concerns access to these glues, whether they should be banned from sale to young people under 16 or 18 years of age, and whether additives should be put in them to make them unpleasant.
As for a ban on sales, I am aware that one leading manufacturer has advised retailers not to sell to children where they suspect that the purchasers may be using the glue for sniffing. I have had a helpful suggestion from the hon. Member for Harrow, West (Mr. Page), that retailers should be made aware of the dangers of glue sniffing and should inform the police where they experience a run on particular product lines of glues.
Some manufacturers are adopting a responsible approach to this matter, but the Home Office and the Department of Health and Social Security should consider whether powers should be taken to


enable the sales of these products—product by product—to be banned in specific areas on a trial basis. I am aware that banning the sale of these products to under-sixteens might not work, and that if it did work it might lead to children going on to worse things which had to be made publicly available. I think that there is a strong argument for experimenting with bans in particular regions for two years and seeing whether that has an effect on the sales of glue and the incidence of glue sniffing.
I am aware of the manufacturers' objections to additives, but I think that the Government and the industry should do more to see whether certain additives could be put into glues which would have the effect of deterring children from glue sniffing.
Three states in the United States already have laws requiring additives to be put into glues. Massachusetts requires that oil of mustard or other deterrents to inhalation should be put into glues. The DHSS and the Home Office should consider the United States' experience, both in respect of additives and in respect of the fact that 23 states restrict the sale of glues in one way or another.
Thirdly, and most important, there is the question of better education, and of the DHSS taking a lead in educating children and parents about the dangers of glue sniffing. Parents should be told that if their children have boils round the mouth and are listless and moody, and lose their appetite, they are showing symptoms not of an illness but of glue sniffing, and require social as well as medical help.
Children should be made more aware of the problems. The DHSS should consider the excellent example of the social services department in Lancashire, which, in co-operation with the police, produced some useful and helpful leaflets two years ago.

Mr. Nigel Spearing: fs my hon. Friend aware that the Department of Education, to which I referred a case some time ago, did not see it as its duty to advise schools, which are often the first to witness outbreaks of glue sniffing, on how they should go about looking for the signs and perhaps creating a pool of national information?

Mr. Straw: I am sorry to hear that. I hope that the Under-Secretary who is to reply will try to change the DES's laissez-faire attitude.
I am aware that it is the error of every politician to believe that each problem must have a solution. I do not pretend that there is an easy answer to the problem of glue sniffing but I believe that it is a problem that we cannot ignore and that needs to be taken seriously. The Government could take helpful action, and I look forward to the Minister's announcing such action.

Mr. David Young: On 12 July this year, in Bolton, a girl of 15 years of age died tragically from sniffing a pain-relieving medical spray. That was certainly a contributory factor to her death. That brought home to us all in Bolton the effects of sniffing such agents, and also solvents.
I am concerned that it is difficult to ascertain the facts and discover the size of the problem. It is difficult to discover whether what we are seeing is the tip of an iceberg or something that is widespread. I ask the Minister to arrange for statistics to be collected so that local authorities and other concerned bodies may be able to judge how vast the problem is. Unless we can judge that we shall not be able to take remedial action. I am sure that the police, the social services and all the other concerned bodies will do what they can, but obviously they must have a yardstick against which to judge the resources that they devote to the problem.
Each of us recognises that drug addiction can be extremely serious. The experimentation that we are discussing is the first stage towards soft, and then hard, drugs. Unless we get down to the roots where the experimentation starts and stem it before it takes hold, the drug problem will be greatly expanded. I am concerned that the DES has not given guidance or encouragement to authorities to find out more about such experimentation, because that is the point at which drug addiction often starts.
I am concerned about an answer that I recently received from the Department of Trade, to which it was transferred by the Home Secretary. In reply to my


question on the sniffing of sprays, particularly medical sprays, it concluded:
As far as the problem of sniffing is concerned there are many consumer products which can be and are misused in this way, but are quite safe when properly used for their intended purpose."—[Official Report, 17 July 1980; Vol. 988, c. 638-39.]
We recognise that, but if sniffing of medical sprays is at least one element in a complicated formula, should not these at least be put on prescription? Again, we return to the question of statistics to justify such action. Let us see how big the problem is and devote all the resources we can to stop this pernicious habit.

The Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Security (Sir George Young): I am grateful to the hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr. Straw) for raising this topic in a responsible and constructive way, because it is a matter that causes a great deal of concern among the general public.
I propose to try to set the matter in perspective, consider a positive range of responses to the problem within existing powers, and then consider some of the ideas that have been suggested for using the criminal law against users or suppliers, and some of the practical problems involved.
Although the practice is generally referred to as glue sniffing it is not restricted to glue. A wide range of goods in common domestic use can be misused to experience hallucinatory effects or a euphoric sensation similar to that experienced after drinking alcohol. This can lead to dizziness, double vision and nausea. Short-term use can in rare instances cause death, but in other cases does not, from the evidence available, seem to produce any detectable damage. The cause for real concern, as the hon. Member for Bolton, East (Mr. Young) implied, comes from casual or intermittent use, which leads to prolonged use, from which some people may develop permanent damage to the brain, liver or kidneys. In the United Kingdom exact figures on the incidence of sniffing, or on the number of injuries and deaths resulting from the practice, are not available, but in the last 10 years there have been some deaths—between five and 10 a year.
I have some sympathy with what both hon. Members said about better information on the incidence of sniffing. I shall urgently consider how we can improve the statistics, by using the local authority social service departments, the courts, or the hospitals.
Many young people may experiment briefly with "sniffing", as one experiment among many in growing up, without its becoming a habit or leading to any serious consequences. The practice is not confined to any particular age group, though undoubtedly it mainly affects adolescents. The pattern seems to be one of limited and scattered outbreaks among groups of young people, rapidly tailing off as other activities, including drinking, become available. In the country as a whole there is no firm evidence to show that sniffing is becoming more widespread.
Before considering possible solutions to the problem I should like to set it in context. The hon. Member for Bolton. East, drew attention to the tragic death from sniffing in his constituency this month. Although we know of only about five to 10 deaths a year from this cause, each one is one too many, especially as the deaths are of youngsters. I should like to extend my sympathy to the girl's family and friends. However, compared with deaths from, for example, road accidents in the under-19 age group, which totalled about 1,800 in 1978, they are few. Set against the 50.000 premature deaths from smoking, they also fall into insignificance, and, of course, cigarettes do not perform the useful function of sticking broken pieces of china together or making one's furniture shine, or making the top of one's wife's head look attractive. But the fact that a solvent-sniffing death receives the headlines that we saw last week at least indicates that this is not one more tragedy of life that we blandly accept and pass by with no more than a cursory glance.
Therefore, we must consider most seriously what can practically be done to reduce, if not eradicate, the harm. Many of the ideas that I have looked at over the past few days are either so drastic that they are unacceptable or of such little effect as to be hardly worth undertaking. So before I look at what might be done negatively by law I should like to look at what can be done positively under present powers.
The hon. Member for Blackburn suggested a national education campaign. I fully agree that education is vital, and propose to consider what sort in more detail. In general, warning children about the serious risks that they incur represents the most rational and effective response. That message is dramatically and tragically reinforced by the death of Dawn Hulme.
Responsible informative articles in appropriate journals aimed at parents, such as a recent article in Good Housekeeping, can also play a valuable role in educating the public. Parents must exercise their own responsibilities for knowing what their children are doing and controlling them. Parents should be advised to look for the symptoms—the smell of glue and other solvents, signs on clothing, a rash or boils round the nose and mouth, a red ring round the nose, possibly accompanying loss of appetite, loss of co-ordination, confusion, restlessness or slurred speech. But such behavioural changes could, of course, be due to other causes. In any event, parents and other adults may need help in recognising the problem, and confidence in tackling it.
I share the view of my right hon. Friend the Minister for Consumer Affairs and other Ministers who have looked with concern at this problem that the most practicable way to meet it is by local initiative through appropriate health education, by drug liaison committees where they exist, and crucially, by enlisting the co-operation of school teachers, doctors, social workers, police and youth organisers in those localities where there is evidence that sniffing is taking place.
My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Home Department on 17 March expressed the view that the correct approach is through persuasion and education rather than the criminal law. My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Education and Science, in response to a written question on 7 May, said:
The matter is best tackled through teachers and others in positions of responsibility, warning young people about the dangers involved, and through continuing programmes of health education which include reference to the misuse of drugs generally".—[Official Report, 7 May 1980; Vol. 984, c. 126.]

That was reiterated on 4 June. I will draw to his attention the critical remarks made in this debate.
I understand that there is a chapter on this in the Department of Education and Science's handbook "Health Education in Schools". Other leaflets are available which teachers would find helpful. In particular, there is "Notes on Solvent Sniffing", prepared by the Camden and Islington area health authority.
I am not convinced at this stage that a circular from my Department is wanted or needed by the field authorities and the professions concerned. Two specialised voluntary organisations are helping in this matter. One of these is the Institute for the Study of Drug Dependency, which is grant-aided by the Department; it publicises an extensive bibliography on solvent use and a leaflet on "Teaching about a volatile situation", aimed at minimising casualties. The other organisation is Release, supported by the Home Office, which publishes a factual leaflet, and held a conference in January attended by 250 people from a wide range of statutory and voluntary organisations.
The consensus of that conference was that health education directed at minimising harm represents the most rational and effective response, and is the most hopeful course for preventing those tragic deaths which can happen to the young experimenter the first time out.
Some people have suggested that children's legislation should be amended to make sniffing a specific ground for bringing a child before a juvenile court as in need of care and protection. I am not convinced that it is necessary to identify sniffing in particular as a form of self-abuse before care proceedings can be brought. One of the existing conditions for bringing care proceedings is that the child's health is being avoidably impaired or neglected. Although care proceedings could not be ruled out in an exceptional case, I do not think that removing a child from his parents—which would generally be the purpose of care proceedings—is the best way to tackle this problem.
It has also been suggested that the police should have greater powers. At the moment, there is no evidence that the police have insufficient powers to take appropriate action when a person is found to be intoxicated by solvents.
It is open to a constable to refer any person to a suitable medical or perhaps detoxifiation facility, and to take him to such a place if he is willing to go. Where an arrestable offence or a breach of the peace is involved, a person may be taken into custody, and the police will ensure that he receives medical attention if it is needed.
My right hon. Friend the Minister for Consumer Affairs has considered the desirability of introducing regulations requiring products that may be sniffed to carry a warning, but the great and growing range of items makes this impracticable; worse, such labelling would identify the product worth sniffing. If one looks at the range of products involved one sees that it is quite extensive. There is gas-lighter fuel, nail varnish, nail polish remover, surgical spirit, anti-freeze, petrol, polishes, cleaning solutions, and all aerosol sprays. Similar objections apply to ingredient labelling. General publicity about harmful substances could likewise be counterproductive.
The hon. Member for Blackburn suggested putting an aversive additive into products to deter the sniffer. This must not cause discomfort or risk to a person using the product for its intended purpose, or detract significantly from the product for its intended purpose, or detract significantly from the product's effectiveness. A number of different additives would be required because, for example, an acceptable smelly additive for floor polish might deter the innocent user of a hair spray. A research programme to identify additives would be uncertain and costly, and I agree with my right hon. Friend the Minister for Consumer Affairs that it is difficult at present to justify embarking on such a project.

Mr. Straw: Whenever the question of additives or restrictions on sales is raised the objection is taken that this could cover a very wide range of products, but the truth is that only a handful of glues are really popular among children. Rather than carrying it so widely, should not consideration be given to providing warnings on the packets of those substances and at least seeing whether it has some effect on the practice?

Sir G. Young: That is a valuable suggestion. I should like to explore

it. The danger of identifying one or two products for this rather distinctive treatment is that it simply moves potential abusers on to some of the other products that I have mentioned. A few years ago inquiries were made of the chemical defence establishment to find out what might be the cost of identifying one additive for the most abused substance. I understand that the estimate was that it would take up to two and a half years and cost at least £ 150,000, and that there was no guarantee of a successful outcome. I shall look at the matter again in the light of the representations that have been made, but I am not optimistic that this is a valuable avenue for progress.
My right hon. Friend's inquiries have suggested that the substitution of less harmful substances would not be technically practicable, partly because there are good reasons why particular products are used, for example, to avoid flam-mability hazards. Moreover, unless all sniffable products were replaced by substitutes, misusers would simply turn to the remaining ones.
The hon. Member then suggested prohibition of the sale of solvents to young persons in certain areas. But so many products would have to be controlled, as the list that I have just read out would indicate, and many of those products—indeed, most of them—are products which in normal use are perfectly acceptable to be used by young people. It would be extremely difficult to ensure the effective enforcement of age limits, even on pain of criminal prosecution of the trader and the check-out girl at the supermarket.
Moreover, if one overcame that, young people who could not buy solvents themselves could simply persuade older friends to do so, they could use products that are readily available at home, or they could travel outside the area to get them, and it would be more difficult to prevent theft than, for example, in the case of drugs. So without wishing to appear totally negative, I think that there are some formidable practical objections to pursuing that suggestion from the hon. Gentleman.
It has also been suggested that as solvent sniffing and the social problems arising from it bear similarities to the misuse of drugs, similar regimes of control might be introduced as are applied to drugs under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971. But


the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs—which advises Ministers on all matters to do with the control of drug misuse—has looked at this and has concluded that the model of strict control under the Misuse of Drugs Act, which penalises such activities as unlawful manufacture, supply and possession of drugs that are misused, could not be applied to a whole range of common household products and would in any case be doomed to failure because of the impossibility of enforcement.
To sum up, I see many difficulties in creating new offences and I share the confidence that the Home Secretary has expressed that the police could play their

full part, along with other local services, in the educational and persuasive approach that we consider to be the most practicable for tackling this problem. I shall look again at some of the specific suggestions that have been made in the debate, especially the one about statistics. But we have to remember that we live in a society in which individual responsibility and common sense, rather than State intervention, are the main safeguards against damage of this kind, and there really is a limit to effectual Government action in this type of activity.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at four minutes past Two o'clock.

PUBLIC SECTOR INDUSTRIES

Divisions 411 to 412


Division No. 411]
AYES
[10.00 pm


Abse, Leo
Fitt, Gerard
Mikardo, Ian


Adams, Allen
Flannery, Martin
Millan, Rt Hon Bruce


Allaun, Frank
Fletcher, L. R. (Ilkeston)
Miller, Dr M. S. (East Kilbride)


Anderson, Donald
Fletcher, Ted (Darlington)
Mitchell, Austin (Grimsby)


Archer, Rt Hon Peter
Fool, Rt Hon Michael
Mitchell, R. C. (Solon, Itchen)


Armstrong, Rt Hon Ernest
Forrester, John
Morris, Rt Hon Alfred (Wythenshawe)


Ashley, Rt Hon Jack
Foster, Derek
Morris, Rt Hon Charles (Openshaw)


Ashton, Joe
Fraser, John (Lambeth, Norwood)
Morris, Rt Hon John (Aberavon)


Atkinson, Norman (H'gey, Tott'ham)
Freeson, Rt Hon Reginald
Morton, George


Bagier, Gordon A. T.
Garrett, John (Norwich S)
Moyle, Rt Hon Roland


Barnett, Guy (Greenwich)
Garrett, W. E. (Wallsend)
Newens, Stanley


Barnett, Rt Hon Joel (Heywood)
George, Bruce
Oakes, Rt Hon Gordon


Benn, Rt Hon Anthony Wedgwood
Gilbert, Rt Hon Dr John
Ogden, Eric


Bennett, Andrew (Stockport N)
Ginsburg, David
O'Halloran, Michael


Bidwell, Sydney
Goldlng, John
O'Neill, Martin


Booth, Rt Hon Albert
Gourlay, Harry
Orme, Rt Hon Stanley


Boothroyd, Miss Betty
Graham, Ted
Owen, Rt Hon Dr David


Bottomley, Rt Hon Arthur (M'brough)
Grant, George (Morpeth)
Palmer, Arthur


Bray, Dr Jeremy
Grant, John (Islington C)
Park, George


Brown, Hugh D. (Provan)
Hamilton, James (Bothwall)
Parker, John


Brown, Robert C. (Newcastle W)
Hamilton, W. W. (Central Fife)
Parry, Robert


Brown, Ronald W. (Hackney S)
Hardy, Peter
Pavitt, Laurie


Brown. Ron (Edinburgh, Lelth)
Harrison, Rt Hon Walter
Powell, Raymond (Ogmore)


Buchan, Norman
Hart, Rt Hon Dame Judith
Prescott, John


Callaghan, Rt Hon J. (Cardiff SE)
Hattersley, Rt Hon Roy
Price, Christopher (Lewlsham West)


Callaghan, Jim (Middleton & P)
Haynes, Frank
Race, Reg


Campbell, Ian
Healey, Rt Hon Denis
Radlce, Giles


Campbell-Savours, Dale
Heffer, Eric S.
Rees, Rt Hon Merlyn (Leeds South)


Canavan., Dennis
Hogg, Norman (E Dunbartonshire)
Richardson, Jo


Cant, R. B.
Holland, Stuart (L'beth, Vauxhall)
Roberts, Albert (Normanton)


Carmichael, Nell
Home Robertson, John
Roberts, Allan (Bootle)


Carter-Jones, Lewis
Homewood, William
Roberts, Ernest (Hackney North)


Cartwright, John
Hooley, Frank
Roberts, Gwilym (Cannock)


Clark. Dr. David (South Shields)
Horam, John
Robinson, Geoffrey (Coventry NW)


Cocks Rt Hon Michael (Bristol S)
Huckfield, Les
Rodgers, Rt Hon William


Cohen, Stanley
Hudson Davies, Gwilym Ednyfed
Rooker, J. W.


Coleman, Donald
Hughes, Mark (Durham)
Roper, John


Concannon, Rt Hon J. D.
Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen North)
Ross, Ernest (Dundee West)


Conian, Bernard
Hughes, Roy (Newport)
Rowlands, Ted


Cook, Robin F.
Janner, Hon Greville
Ryman, John


Cowans, Harry
Jay, Rt Hon Douglas
Sandelson, Neville


Cox, Tom (Wandsworth, Tooting)
John, Brynmor
Sever, John


Cralgen, J. M. (Glasgow, Maryhlll)
Johnson, James (Hull West)
Sileerman, Barry


Crowther, J. S.
Jones, Rt Hon Alec (Rhonddal
Sheldon, Rt Hon Robert (A'ton-u-L)


Cryer, Bob
Jones, Barry (East Flint)
Shore, Rt Hon Peter (Step and Pop)


Cunllffe, Lawrence
Jones, Dan (Burnley)
Short, Mrs Renee


Cunningham, George (Islington S)
Kaufman, Rt Hon Gerald
Silkin, Rt Hon John (Deptford)


Cunningham, Dr John (Whitehaven)
Kerr, Russell
Silkln, Rt Hon S. C. (Dulwlch)


Dalyell, Tam
Kllroy-Silk, Robert
Silverman, Julius


Davidson, Arthur
Kinnock, Neil
Skinner, Dennis


Davies, Rt Hon Denzll (Lianelll)
Lamble, David
Smith, Rt Hon J. (North Lanarkshire)


Davies, Ifor (Gower)
Lamborn, Harry
Snaps, Peter


Davia, Clinton (Hackney Central)
Leadbitter, Ted
Soley, Clive


Deakins, Eric
Leighton, Ronald
Spearing, Nigel


Dempsey, James
Lester, Miss Joan (Eton & Slough)
Stallard, A. W.


Dewar, Donald
Lewis, Arthur (Newham North West)
Stewart, Rt Hon Donald (W Isles)


Dixon, Donald
Lewis, Ron (Carlisle)
Stoddart, David


Dobson, Frank
Litherland, Robert
Stott, Roger


Dormand, Jack
Lofthouse, Geoffrey
Strang, Gavin


Douglas, Dick
Lyon, Alexander (York)
Straw, Jack


Douglas-Mann, Bruce
Lyons, Edward (Bradford West)
Summerskill, Hon Dr Shirley


Dubs, Alfred
McDonald, Dr Oonagh
Taylor, Mrs Ann (Bolton West)


Duffy, A. E. P.
McElhone, Frank
Thomas, Dafydd (Merioneth)


Dunn, James A. (Liverpool, Kirkdale)
McKay, Allen (Penlstone)
Thomas, Jeffrey (Abertlllery)


Dunnett, Jack
McKelvey, William
Thomas, Mike (Newcastle East)


Dunwoody, Mrs Gwynelh
MacKenzie, Rt Hon Gregor
Thomas, Dr Roger (Carmarthen)


Eadle, Alex
Maclennan, Robert
Thorne, Stan (Preston South)


Eastham, Ken
McNally, Thomas
Tilley, John


Edwards, Robert (Wolv SE)
McNamara, Kevin
Tinn, James


Ellis, Raymond (NE Derbyshire)
McWilliam, John
Tomey, Tom


Ellis, Tom (Wrexham)
Magee, Bryan
Urwin, Rt Hon Tom


English, Michael
Marshall, David (Gl'sgow, Sheltles'n)
Varley, Rt Hon Eric G.


Ennals, Rt Hon David
Marshall, Dr Edmund (Goole)
Wainwright, Edwin (Dearne Valley)


Evans, loan (Aberdare)
Marshall, Jim (Leicester South)
Walker, Rt Hon Harold (Doncaster)


Evans, John (Newton)
Martin, Michael (Gl'gow, Sprlngb'rn)
Watkins, David


Ewing, Harry
Mason, Rt Hon Roy
Weetch, Ken


Faulds, Andrew
Maynard, Miss Joan
Wellbeloved, James


Field, Frank
Meacher, Michael
Walsh, Michael


Fitch, Alan
Mellish, Rt Hon Robert
White, Frank R. (Bury & Radcliffe)

White, James (Glasgow, Pollok)
Wilson, Gordon (Dundee East)
Wright, Sheila


Whitlock, William
Winnick, David



Willey, Rt Hon Frederick
Woodall, Alec
TELLERS FOR THE AYES:


Williams, Rt Hon Alan (Swansea W)
Woolmer, Kenneth
Mr. Terry Davis and


Williams, Sir Thomas (Warrington)
Wriggiesworth, Ian
Mr. Hugh McCartney.

NOES


Adley, Robert
Lamont, Norman
Knox, David


Alexander, Richard
Eggar, Timothy
Lang, Ian


Alison, Michael
Elliott, Sir William
Langford-Holt, Sir John


Alton, David
Emery, Peter
Latham, Michael


Amery, Rt Hon Julian Ancram, Michael
Eyre, Reginald
Lawrence, Ivan


Arnold, Ton
Falrbairn, Nicholas
Lawson, Nigel


Atkins, Robert (Preston North)
Fairgrieve, Russell
Lee, John


Atkinson, David (B'mouth, East)
Faith, Mrs Sheila
Lester, Jim (Beeston)


Baker, Kenneth (St. Marylebone)
Farr, John
Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)


Baker, Nicholas (North Dorset)
Fell, Anthony
Lloyd, Ian (Havant & Waterloo)


Banks, Robert Beaumont-Dark, Anthony
Fenner, Mrs Peggy
Lloyd, Peter (Fareham)


Beith, A. J.
Finsberg, Geoffrey
Loveridge, John


Bell, Sir Ronald
Fisher, Sir Nigel
Luce, Richard


Bendall, Vivian
Fletcher, Alexander (Edinburgh N)
Lyell, Nicholas


Benyon, Thomas (Abingdon)
Fletcher-Cooke, Charles
Macfarlane, Neil


Beryon, W. (Buckingham)
Fookes, Miss Janet
MacGregor, John


Best, Keith
Forman, Nigel
MacKay, John (Argyll)


Bevan, David Gilroy
Fowler, Rt Hon Norman
Macmillan, Rt Hon M. (Famham)


Biffen, Rt Hon John
Fox, Marcus
McNair-Wilson, Patrick (New Forest)


Blggs-Davison, John
Fraser, Rt Hon Sir Hugh
McQuarrie, Albert


Blackburn, John
Fraser, Peter (South Angus)
Madel, David


Blaker, Peter
Fry, Peter
Major, John


Body, Richard
Galbraith, Hon T. G. D.
Marland, Paul


Bonsor, Sir Nicholas
Gardiner, George (Relgate)
Marlow, Tony


Boscawen, Hon Robert
Gardner, Edward (South Fylde)
Marshall, Michael (Arundel)


Bottomley, Peter (Woolwich West)
Garel-Jones, Tristan
Marten, Neil (Banbury)


Bowden, Andrew
Gilmour, Rt Hon Sir Ian
Mates, Michael


Boyson, Dr. Rhodes
Glyn, Dr Alan
Mather, Carol


Bralne, Sir Bernard
Goodhew, Victor
Maude, Rt Hon Angus


Bright, Graham
Goodlad, Alastalr
Mawby, Ray


Brinton, Tim
Gorst, John
Mawhinney, Dr Brian


Brittan, Leon
Gow, Ian
Maxwell-Hyslop, Robin


Brocklebank-Fowler, Christopher
Grant, Anthony (Harrow C)
Mayhew, Patrick


Brooke, Hon Peter
Gray, Hamlsh
Mellor, David


Brotherton, Michael
Greenway, Harry
Meyer, Sir Anthony


Brown, Michael (Brigg & Sc thorpe)
Grieve, Percy
Miller, Hal (Bromsgrove & Redditch)


Browne, John (Winchester)
Griffiths, Peter (Portsmouth N)
Mills, lain (Meriden)


Bruce-Gardyne, John
Grimond, Rt Hon J.
Mills, Peter (West Devon)


Bryan. Sir Paul
Grist, Ian
Mlscampbell, Norman


Buck, Antony
Gummer, John Selwyn
Mitchell, David (Basingstoke)


Budgen, Nick
Hamilton, Hon Archie (Eps'm&Ew'll)
Moate, Roger


Bulmer, Esmond
Hamilton, Michael (Salisbury)
Molyneaux, James


Burden, Sir Frederick
Hampson, Dr Keith
Monro, Hector


Butcher, John
Hannam, John
Montgomery, Fergus


Butler, Hon Adam
Haselhurst, Alan Hastings, Stephen
Moore, John


Cadbury, Jocelyn
Havers, Rt Hon Sir Michael
Morgan, Geralnt


Carlisle, John (Luton West)
Hawkins, Paul
Morris, Michael (Northampton, Sth)


Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)
Hawksley, Warren
Morrison, Hon Charles (Devizes)


Carlisle, Rt Hon Mark (Runcorn)
Hayhoe, Barney
Morrison, Hon Peter (City of Chester)


Chalker, Mrs. Lynda
Heath, Rt Hon Edward
Mudd, David


Channon, Rt Hon Paul
Heddle, John
Murphy, Christopher


Chapman, Sydney
Henderson, Barry
Myles, David


Churchill, W. S.
Heseltine, Rt Hon Michael
Neale, Gerrard


Clark, Hon Alan (Plymouth, Sutton)
Hicks, Robert
Needham, Richard


Clark, Sir William (Croydon South)
Higgins, Rt Hon Terence L.
Nelson, Anthony


Clarke, Kenneth (Rushclltle)
Hill, James
Neubert, Michael


Clegg, Sir Walle
Hogg, Hon Douglas (Grantham)
Newton, Tony


Cockeram, Eric
Holland, Philip (Carlton)
Normanton, Tom


Colvln, Michael
Hordern, Peter
Nott, Rt Hon John


Cope, John
Howe, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey
Onslow, Cranley


Cormack, Patrick
Howell, Rt Hon David (Guildford)
Oppenheim, Rt Hon Mrs Sally


Corrie, John
Howell, Ralph (North Norfolk)
Osborn, John


Costain, Sir Albert
Hunt, David (Wirral)
Page, John (Harrow, West)


Cranborne, Viscount Crouch,
Hunt, John (Ravensbourne)
Page, Rt Hon Sir R. Graham


David Dean, Paul (North Somerset)
Irving, Charles (Cheltenham)
Page, Richard (SW Hertfordshire)


Dickens, Geoffrey
Jenkin, Rt Hon Patrick
Parkinson, Cecil


Dorrell, Stephen
Jessel, Toby
Parris, Matthew


Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James
Johnson Smith, Geoffrey
Patten, Christopher (Bath)


Dover, Denshore
Johnston, Russell (Inverness)
Patten, John (Oxford)


du Cann, Rt Hon Edward
Jopling, Rt Hon Michael
Pattie, Geoffrey


Dunlop, John
Joseph, Rt Hon Sir Keith
Pawsey, James


Dunn, Robert (Dartford)
Kaberry, Sir Donald
Penhallgon, David


Durant, Tony
Kellett-Bowman, Mrs Elaine
Percival, Sir Ian


Dykes, Hugh
Kershaw, Anthony
Peyton, Rt Hon John


Eden, Rt Hon Sir John
King, Rt Hon Tom
Pink, R. Bonner



Kitson, Sir Timothy
Pollock, Alexander



Knight, Mrs Jill
Porter, George

Powell, Rt Hon J. Enoch (S Down)
Silvester, Fred
Townsend, Cyril D. (Bexleyheath)


Prentice, Rt Hon Reg
Sims, Roger
Trippler, David


Price, Sir David
Skeet, T. H. H.
Trotter, Neville


Prior, Rt Hon James
Smith, Dudley (War. and Learn ton)
van-Straubenzee, W. R.


Proctor, K. Harvey
Speed, Keith
Vlggers, Peter


Pym, Rt Hon Francis
Speller, Tony
Waddington, David


Raison, Timothy
Spence, John
Walnwright, Richard (Colne Valley)


Rathbone, Tim
Spicer, Jim (West Dorset)
Wakeham, John


Sees, Peter (Dover and Deal)
Spicer, Michael (S Worcestershire)
Walker, Bill (Perth & E Perthshire)


Rees-Davies, W. R.
Sproat, lain
Walker-Smith, Rt Hon Sir Derek


Renton, Tim
Squire, Robin
Wall, Patrick


Rhodes James, Robert
Stainton, Keith
Waller, Gary


Rhys Williams, Sir Brandon
Stanbrook, Ivor
Walters, Dennis


Ridley, Hon Nicholas
Stanley, John
Ward, John


Ridsdaie, Julian
Steel, Rt Hon David
Warren, Kenneth


Rifkind, Malcolm
Steen, Anthony
Watson, John


Rippon, Rt Hon Geoffrey
Stevens, Martin
Wells, John (Maidstone)


Roberts, Michael (Cardiff NW)
Stewart, Ian (Hitchin)
Wells, Bowen (Hert'rd & Stev'nage)


Roberls, Wyn (Conway)
Stewart, John (East Renfrewshire)
Wheeler, John


Rossi, Hugh
Stokes, John
Whitelaw, Rt Hon William


Rost, Peter
Stradling Thomas, J.
Whitney, Raymond


Royle, Sir Anthony
Tapsell. Peter
Wickenden, Keith


Sainsbury, Hon Timothy
Taylor, Robert (Croydon NW)
Wilkinson, John


St. John-Stevas, Rt Hon Norman
Taylor, Teddy (Southend East)
Williams, Delwyn (Montgomery)


Scott, Nicholas
Tebbit, Norman
Winterton, Nicholas


Shaw, Giles (Pudsey)
Thatcher, Rt Hon Mrs Margaret
Wolfson, Mark


Shaw, Michael (Scarborough)
Thomas, Rt Hon. Peter (Hendon S)
young, Sir George (Acton)


Shelton, William (Streatham)
Thompson, Donald



Shepherd, Colin (Hereford)
Thorne, Neil (Ilford South)
TELLERS FOR THE NOES:


Shepherd, Richard (Aldridge-Br'hills)
Thornton, Malcolm
Mr. Spencer Le Marcliant and


Shersby, Michael
Townend, John (Bridlington)
Mr. Anthony Berry.

Division No. 412]
AYES
[10.14 pm


Adley, Robert
Clark, Hon Alan (Plymouth, Sutton)
Gorst, John


Alexander, Richard
Clark, Sir William (Croydon South)
Gow, Ian


Alison, Michael
Clarke, Kenneth (Rushcliffe)
Grant, Anthony (Harrow C)


Amery, Rt Hon Julian
Clegg, Sir Walter
Gray, Hamish


Ancram, Michael
Cockeram, Eric
Greenway, Harry


Arnold, Tom
Colvin, Michael
Grieve, Percy


Atkins, Robert (Preston North)
Cope, John
Griffiths, Peter (Portsmouth N)


Atkinson, David (B'mouth, East)
Cormaek, Patrick
Grist, Ian


Baker, Kenneth (St. Marylebone)
Corrle, John
Gummer, John Selwyn


Banks, Robert
Costain, Sir Albert
Hamilton, Hon Archie (Eps'm&Ew'll)


Beaumont-Dark, Anthony
Cranborne, Viscount
Hamilton, Michael (Salisbury)


Bell, Sir Ronald
Crouch, David
Hampson, Dr Keith


Sendall, Vivian
Dean, Paul (North Somerset)
Hannam, John


Benyon, Thomas (Abingdon)
Dickens, Geoffrey
Haselhurst, Alan


Benyon, W. (Buckingham)
Dorrell, Stephen
Hastings, Stephen


Best, Keith
Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James
Havers, Rl Hon Sir Michael


3evan, David Gilroy
Dover, Denshore
Hawkins, Paul


Siffsn, Rt Hon John
du Cann, Rt Hon Edward
Hawksley, Warren


Biggs-Davison, John
Dunlop, John
Hayhoe, Barney


Blackburn, John
Dunn, Robert (Dartford)
Heath, Rt Hon Edward


Blaker. Peter
Durant, Tony
Heddle, John


Body, Richard
Dykes, Hugh
Henderson, Barry


Bonsor, Sir Nicholas
Eden, Rt Hon Sir John
Heseltine, Rt Hon Michael


Boscawen, Hon Robert
Eggar, Timothy
Hicks, Robert


Bottomley, Peter (Woolwich West)
Elliott, Sir William
Higgins, Rt Hon Terence L.


Bowden, Andrew
Emery, Peter
Hill, James


Boyson, Dr. Rhodes
Eyre, Reginald
Hogg, Hon Douglas (Grantham)


Braine, Sir Bernard
Fairbalrn, Nicholas
Holland, Philip (Carlton)


Bright, Graham
Fairgrieve, Russell
Hordern, Peter


Brinton, Tim
Faith, Mrs Sheila
Howe, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey


Brittan, Leon
Farr, John
Howell, Rt Hon David (Guildford)


Brocklebank-Fowler, Christopher -
Fell, Anthony
Howell, Ralph (North Norfolk)


Brooke, Hon Peter
Fenner, Mrs Peggy
Hunt, David (Wirral)


Broiherton, Michael
Flnsberg, Geoffrey
Hunt, John (Ravenebourne)


Brown, Michael (Brlgg ft Sc'thorpe)
Fisher, Sir Nigel
Irving, Charles (Cheltenham)


Browne, John (Winchester)
Fletcher, Alexander (Edinburgh N)
Jenkln, Rt Hon Patrick


Bruce-Gardyne, John
Fletcher-Cooke, Charles
Jessel, Toby


Bryan, Sir Paul
Fookes, Miss Janet
Johnson Smith, Geoffrey


Buck, Antony
Forman, Nigel
Jopling, Rt Hon Michael


Budgen, Nick
Fowler, Rt Hon Norman
Joseph, Rt Hon Sir Keith


Bulmer, Esmond
Fox, Marcus
Kaberry, Sir Donald


Burden, F. A.
Fraser, Rt Hon Sir Hugh
Kelletl-Bowman, Mrs Elaine


Butcher, John
Fraser, Peter (South Angus)
Kershaw, Anthony


Butler, Hon Adam
Fry, Peter
King, Rt Hon Tom


Cadbury, Jocelyn
Galbraith, Hon T. G. D.
Kitson, Sir Tl[...]ny


Carlisle, John (Luton West)
Gardiner, George (Relgate)
Knight, Mrs Jill


Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)
Gardner, Edward (South Fylde)
Knox, David


Carlisle, Rt Hon Mark (Runcorn)
Garel-Jones, Tristan
Lamont, Norman


Chalker, Mrs. Lynda
Gilmour, Rt Hon Sir Ian
Lang, Ian


Channon, Rt Hon Paul
Glyn, Dr Alan
Langford-Holt, Sir John


Chapman, Sydney
Goodhew, Victor
Latham, Michael


Churchill, W. S.
Goodlad, Alastair
Lawrence, Ivan

Lawson, Nigel
Onslow, Cranley
Spence, John


Lee, John
Oppenheim, Rt Hon Mrs Sally
Spicer, Jim (West Dorset)


Lester, Jim (Beeston)
Osborn, John
Spicer, Michael (S Worcestershire)


Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)
Page, John (Harrow, West)
Sproat, lain


Lloyd, Ian (Havant & Waterloo)
Page, Rt Hon Sir R. Graham
Squire, Robin


Lloyd, Peter (Fareham)
Page, Richard (SW Hertfordshire)
Stainton, Keith


Loveridge, John
Parkinson, Cecil
Stanbrook, Ivor


Luce, Richard
Parris, Matthew
Stanley, John


Lyell, Nicholas
Patten, Christopher (Bath)
Steen, Anthony


Macfarlane, Neil
Patten, John (Oxford)
Stevens, Martin


MacGregor, John
Pattie, Geoffrey
Stewart, Ian (Hitchin)


MacKay, John (Argyll)
Pawsey, James
Stewart, John (East Renfrewshire)


Macmlllan, Rt Hon M. (Farnham)
Percival, Sir Ian
Stokes, John


McNair-Wilson, Patrick (New Forest)
Peyton, Rt Hon John
Stradling Thomas, J.


McQuarrie, Albert
Pink, R. Bonner
Tapsell, Peter


Madel, David
Pollock, Alexander
Taylor, Robert (Croydon NW)


Major, John
Porter, George
Taylor, Teddy (Southend East)


Marland, Paul
Powell, Rt Hon J. Enoch (S Down)
Tebbit, Norman


Marlow, Tony
Prentice, Rt Hon Reg
Thatcher, Rt Hon Mrs Margaret


Marshall, Michael (Arundel)
Price, Sir David
Thomas, Rt Hon Peter (Hendon S)


Marten, Neil (Banbury)
Prior, Rt Hon James
Thompson, Donald


Mates, Michael
Proctor, K. Harvey
Thorne, Neil (Ilford South)


Mather, Carol
Pym, Rt Hon Francis
Townend, John (Bridlington)


Maude, Rt Hon Angus
Ralson, Timothy
Townsend, Cyril D. (Bexleyheath)


Mawby, Ray
Rathbone, Tim
Trippier, David


Mawhinney, Dr Brian
Rees, Peter (Dover and Deal)
Trotter, Neville


Maxwell-Hyslop. Robin
Rees-Davies, W. R.
van-Straubenzee, W. R.


Mayhew, Patrick
Renton, Tim
Viggers, Peter


Meltor, David
Rhodes James, Robert
Waddington, David


Meyer, Sir Anthony
Rhys Williams, Sir Brandon
Wakeham, John


Miller, Hal (Bromsgrove & Redditch)
Ridley, Hon Nicholas
Walker, Bill (Perth & E Perthshire)


Mills, lain (Meriden)
Ridsdale, Julian
Walker-Smith, Rt Hon Sir Derek


Mills, Peter (West Devon)
Rifkind, Malcolm
Wall, Patrick


Miscampbell, Norman
Rippon, Rt Hon Geoffrey
Waller, Gary


Mitchell, David (Basingstoke)
Roberts, Michael (Cardiff NW)
Walters, Dennis


Moate, Roger
Roberts, Wyn (Conway)
Ward, John


Molyneaux, James
Rossi, Hugh
Warren, Kenneth


Monro, Hector
Rost, Peter
Watson, John


Montgomery, Fergus
Royle, Sir Anthony
Wells, John (Maidstone)


Moore, John
Sainsbury, Hon Timothy
Wells, Bowen (Hert'rd & Stev'nage)


Morgan, Geraint
St. John-Stevas, Rt Hon Norman
Wheeler, John


Morris, Michael (Northampton, Sth)
Scott, Nicholas
Whitelaw, Rt Hon William


Morrison, Hon Charles (Devizes)
Shaw, Giles (Pudsey)
Whitney, Raymond


Morrison, Hon Peter (City of Chester)
Shaw, Michael (Scarborough)
Wickenden, Keith


Mudd, David
Shelton, William (Streatham)
Wilkinson, John


Murphy, Christopher
Shepherd, Colin (Hereford)
Williams, Delwyn (Montgomery)


Myles, David
Shepherd, Richard (Aldridge-Br'hills)
Winterton, Nicholas


Neale, Gerrard
Shersby, Michael
Wolfson, Mark


Needham, Richard
Silvester, Fred
Young, Sir George (Acton)


Nelson, Anthony
Sims, Roger



Neubert, Michael
Skeet, T.H. H.
TELLERS FOR THE AYES:


Newton, Tony
Smith, Dudley (War. and Leam'ton)
Mr. Spencer Le Marchant and


Normanton, Tom
Speed, Keith
Mr. Anthony Berry


Nott, Rt Hon John
Speller, Tony

NOES


Abse, Leo
Campbeli, Ian
Deakins, Eric


Adams, Allen
Campbell-Savours, Dale
Dempsey, James


Allaun, Frank
Canavan, Dennis
Dewar, Donald


Alton, David
Cant, R. B
Dixon, Donald


Anderson, Donald
Carmichael, Neil
Dobson, Frank


Archer, Rt Hon Peter
Carter-Jones, Lewis
Dormand, Jack


Armstrong, Rt Hon Ernest
Cartwright, John
Douglas, Dick


Ashley, Rt Hon Jack
Clark, Dr. David (South Shields)
Douglas-Mann, Bruce


Ashton, Joe
Cocks.Rt Hon Michael (Bristol S)
Dubs, Alfred


Atkinson, Norman (H'gey, Tott'ham)
Cohen, Stanley
Duffy, A. E. P.


Bagier, Gordon A. T.
Coleman, Donald
Dunn, James A. (Liverpool, Kirkdale)


Barnett, Guy (Greenwich)
Concannon, Rt Hon J. D.
Dunnett, Jack


Barnett, Rt Hon Joel (Heywood)
Conian, Bernard
Dunwoody, Mrs Gwyneth


Berth, A. J
Cook, Robin F.
Eadie, Alex


Benn, Rt Hon Anthony Wedgwood
Cowans, Harry
Eastham, Ken


Bennett, Andrew (Stockport N)
Cox, Tom (Wandsworth, Tooting)
Edwarda, Robert (Wolv SE)


Bidwell, Sydney
Craigen, J. M. (Glasgow, Maryhill)
Ellis, Raymond (NE Derbyshire)


Booth, Rt Hon Albert
Crowther, J. S.
Ellis, Tom (Wrexham)


Boothroyd, Miss Betty
Cryer, Bob
English, Michael


Bottomley, Rt Hon Arthur (M'brough)
Cunliffe, Lawrence
Ennals, Rt Hon David


Bray, Dr Jeremy
Cunningham, George (Islington S)
Evans, loan (Aberdare)


Brown, Hugh D. (Provan)
Cunningham, Dr John (Whitehaven)
Evans, John (Newton)


Brown, Robert C. (Newcastle W)
Dalyell, Tarn
Ewing, Harry


Brown, Ronald W. (Hackney S)
Davidson, Arthur
Faulds, Andrew


Brown, Ron (Edinburgh, Leith)
Davies, Rt Hon Denzll (Llaneill)
Field, Frank


Buchan, Norman
Davies, Ifor (Gower)
Fitch, Alan


Callaghan, Rt Hon J. (Cardiff SE)
Davis, Clinton (Hackney Central)
Fitt, Gerard


Callaghan, Jim (Middleton & P)
Davis, Terry (B'rm'ham, Stechford)
Flannery, Martin

Fletcher, L. R. (Ilkeston)
Lyon, Alexander (York)
Ross, Ernest (Dundee West)


Fletcher, Ted (Darlington)
Lyons, Edward (Bradford West)
Rowlands, Ted


Foot, Rt Hon Michael
McCartney, Hugh
Ryman, John


Forrester, John
McDonald, Dr Oonagh
Sandelson, Neville


Foster, Derek
McElhone, Frank
Sever, John


Fraser, John (Lambeth, Norwood)
McKay, Allen (Penistone)
Sheerman, Barry


Freeson, Rt Hon Reginald
McKelvey, William
Shaldon, Rt Hon Robert (A'ton-u-L)


Garrett, John (Norwich S)
MacKenzie, Rt Hon Gregor
Shore, Rt Hon Peter (Step and Pop)


Garrett, W. E. (Wallsend)
Maclennan, Robert
Short, Mrs René e


George, Bruce
McNally, Thomas
Silkln, Rt Hon John (Deptford)


Gilbert, Rt Hon Dr John
McNamara, Kevin
Silkln, Rt Hon S. C. (Dulwich)


Ginsburg, David
McWilliam, John
Silverman, Julius


Golding, John
Magee, Bryan
Skinner, Dennis


Gourlay, Harry
Marshall, David (Gl'sgow, Shettles'n)
Smith, Rt Hon J. (North Lanarkshire)


Graham, Ted
Marshall, Dr Edmund (Goole)
Snape, Peter


Grant, George (Morpeth)
Marshall, Jim (Leicester South)
Soley, Clive


Grant, John (Islington C)
Martin, Michael (Gl'gow, Springb'rn)
Spearing, Nigel


Grimond, Rt Hon J.
Mason, Rt Hon Roy
Stallard, A. W.


Hamilton, James (Bothwell)
Maynard, Miss Joan
Steel, Rt Hon David


Hamilton, W. W. (Central Fite)
Meacher, Michael
Stewart, Rt Hon Donald (W Isles)


Hardy, Peter
Mellish, Rt Hon Robert
Stoddart, David


Harrison, Rt Hon Walter
Mikardo, Ian
Stott, Roger


Hart, Rt Hon Dame Judith
Millan, Rt Hon Bruce
Strang, Gavin


Hattersley, Rt Hon Roy
Miller, Dr M. S. (East Kilbride)
Straw, Jack


Haynes, Frank
Mitchell, Austin (Grimsby)
Summerskill, Hon Dr Shirley


Healey, Rt Hon Denis
Mitchell, R. C. (Soton, Itchen)
Taylor, Mrs Ann (Bolton West)


Heffer, Eric S.
Morris, Rt Hon Alfred (Wythenshawe)
Thomas, Dafydd (Merioneth)


Hogg, Norman (E Dunbartonshire)
Morris, Rt Hon Charles (Openshaw)
Thomas, Jeffrey (Abertillery)


Holland, Stuart (L'beth, Vauxhall)
Morris, Rt Hon John (Aberavon)
Thomas, Mike (Newcastle East)


Home Robertson, John
Moyle, Rt Hon Roland
Thomas, Dr Roger (Carmarthen)


Homewood, William
Newens, Stanley
Thorne, Stan (Preston South)


Hooley, Frank
Oakes, Rt Hon Gordon
Tilley, John


Horam, John
Ogden, Eric
Torney, Tom


Huckfield, Les
O'Halloran, Michael
Urwin, Rt Hon Tom


Hudson Davles, Gwllym Ednyled
O'Neill, Martin
Varley, Rt Hon Eric G.


Hughes, Mark (Durham)
Orme, Rt Hon Stanley
Wainwright, Edwin (Dearne Valley)


Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen North)
Owen, Rt Hon Dr David
Wainwright, Richard (Colne Valley)


Hughes, Roy (Newport)
Palmer, Arthur
Walker, Rt Hon Harold (Doncaster)


Janner, Hon Greville
Park, George
Watklns, David


Jay, Rt Hon Douglas
Parker, John
Weetch, Ken


John, Brynmor
Parry, Robert
Wellbeloved, James


Johnson, James (Hull West)
Pavitt, Laurie
Welsh, Michael


Johnston, Russell (Inverness)
Penhaligon, David
White, Frank R. (Bury & Radclifte)


Jones, Rt Hon Alec (Rhondda)
Powell, Raymond (Ogmore)
While, James (Glasgow, Pollok)


Jones, Barry (East Flint)
Prescott, John
Whitlock, William


Jones, Dan (Burnley)
Price, Christopher (Lewisham West)
Willey, Rt Hon Frederick


Kaufman, Rt Hon Gerald
Race, Reg
Williams, Rt Hon Alan (Swansea W)


Kerr, Russell
Radice, Giles
Williams, Sir Thomas (Warrington)


Kilroy-Silk, Robert
Rees, Rt Hon Merlyn (Leeds South)
Wilson, Gordon (Dundee East)


Kinnock, Neil
Richardson, Jo
Winnick, David


Lambie, David
Roberts, Albert (Normanton)
Woodall, Alec


Lamborn, Harry
Roberts, Allan (Bootle)
Woolmer, Kenneth


Leadbitter, Ted
Roberts, Ernest (Hackney North)
Wrigglesworth, Ian


Leighton, Ronald
Roberts, Gwllym (Cannock)
Wright, Sheila


Lester, Miss Joan (Eton & Slough)
Robinson, Geotlrey (Coventry NW)



Lewis, Arthur (Newham North West)
Rodgers, Rt Hon William
TELLERS FOR THE NOES


Lewis, Ron (Carlisle)
Hooker, J. W.
Mr. George Morton and


Litherland, Robert
Roper, John
Mr. James Tinn


Lofthouse, Geoffrey

MEMBERS SALARIES AND PENSIONS


Divisions 413 to 419


Division No. 4131
AYES
[11.45 pm


Alexander, Richard
Biggs-Davison, John
Campbell-Savours, Dale


Alton, David
Blackburn, John
Cant, R. B.


Ancram, Michael
Body, Richard
Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)


Archer, Rt Hon Peter
Boothroyd, Miss Betty
Cartwrlght, John


Ashton, Joe
Bright, Graham
Chapman, Sydney


Atkinson, Norman (H'gey, Tott'ham)
Brinton, Tim
Churchill, W. S.


Bagier, Gordon A. T.
Brocklebank-Fowler, Christopher
Clark, Hon Alan (Plymouth, Sutton)


Baker, Kenneth (St. Marylebone)
Brctherton, Michael
Clark, Dr. David (South Shields)


Baker, Nicholas (North Dorset)
Brcwn, Hugh D. (Provan)
Clark, Sir William (Croydon South)


Banks, Robert
Brown, Michael (Brigg & Sc'thorpe)
Clegg, Sir Walter


Barnett, Rt Hon Joel (Heywood)
Brown, Robert C. (Newcastle W)
Cohen, Stanley


Beaumont-Dark, Anthony
Browne, John (Winchester)
Concannon, Rt Hon J. D.


Beith, A. J
Bruce-Gardyne, John
Cook, Robin F.


Bell, Sir Ronald
Bryan, Sir Paul
Corrie, John


Bendall, Vivian
Buchan, Norman
Cowans, Harry


Bennett, Andrew (Stockport N)
Suck, Antony
Cralgen, J. M. (Glasgow, Maryhlll)


Benyon, W. (Buckingham)
Butcher, John
Crouch, David


Bevan, David Gilroy
Callaghan, Jim (Middleton & P)
Crowther, J. S.

Dalyell, Tarn
Lamond, James
Rippon, Rt Hon Geoffrey


Davidson, Arthur
Latham, Michael
Roberts, Allan (Bootle)


Davies, Ifor (Gower)
Lawrence, Ivan
Roberts, Gwilym (Cannock)


Davis, Clinton (Hackney Central)
Leadbitter, Ted
Robinson, Geoffrey (Coventry NW)


Davis, Terry (B'rm'ham, Stechford)
Lee, John
Robinson, Peter (Belfast East)


Deakina, Eric
Leighton, Ronald
Rodgers, Rt Hon William


Dean, Paul (North Somerset)
Lester, Jim (Beeston)
Rooker, J. W.


Dempsey, James
Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)
Ross, Ernest (Dundee West)


Dixon, Donald
Litherland, Robert
Sainsbury, Hon Timothy


Dobson, Frank
Lloyd, Peter (Fareham)
Sandelson, Neville


Dormand, Jack
Lofthouse, Geoffrey
Scott, Nicholas


Dorrell, Stephen
Lyell, Nicholas
Sever, John


Douglas, Dick
Lyon, Alexander (York)
Shaw, Michael (Scarborough)


Dover, Denshore
Lyons, Edward (Bradford West)
Sheerman, Barry


Dune, Alfred
McElhone, Frank
Sheldon, Rt Hon Robert (A'ton-u-L)


du Cann, Rt Hon Edward
MacKay, John (Argyll)
Shepherd, Colin (Hereford)


Duffy, A. E. P.
McKelvey, William
Shersby, Michael


Dunn, James A. (Liverpool, Kirkdale)
Maclennan, Robert
Skinner, Dennis


Dunn, Robert (Dartford)
Macmillan, Rt Hon M. (Farnham)
Smith, Dudley (War. and Leam'ton)


Dunwoody, Mrs Gwyneth
McNally, Thoma
Snape, Peter


Durant, Tony
Madel, David
Soley, Clive


Dykes, Hugh
Marlow, Tony
Spicer, Jim (West Dorset)


Eastham, Ken
Marshall, Jim (Leicester South)
Spicer, Michael (S Worcestershire)


Eggar, Timothy
Martin, Michael (Gl'gow, Springb'rn)
Steel, Rt Hon David


Emery, Peter
Mates, Michael
Steen, Anthony


Faulds, Andrew
Mawby, Ray
Stevens, Martin


Fenner, Mrs Peggy
Mawhinney, Dr Brian
Stewart, Ian (Hitchin)


Field, Frank
Maxwell-Hyslop, Robin
Stewart, Allan (East Renfrewshire)


Fisher, Sir Nigel
Miller, Dr M. S. (East Kilbride)
Stoddart, David


Forrester, John
Mills, Peter (West Devon)
Stott, Roger


Foster, Derek
Miscampbell, Norman
Strang, Gavin


Fraser, Rt Hon Sir Hugh
Mitchell, Austin (Grimsby)
Straw, Jack


Fraser, Peter (South Angus)
Mitchell, R. C. (Solon, Itchen)
Tapsell, Peter


Freud, Clement
Moate, Roger
Thomas, Mike (Newcastle East)


Gardiner, George (Relgate)
Molyneaux, James
Thompson, Donald


Garrett, John (Norwich S)
Montgomery, Fergus
Thome, Neil (Ilford South)


Goodhew, Victor
Morgan, Geralnt
Tinn, James


Goodlad, Alastalr
Morris, Rt Hon Charles (Openshaw)
Trippier, David


Gow, Ian
Morris, Michael (Northampton, Sth)
Varley, Rt Hon Eric G.


Grant, George (Morpeth)
Morrison, Hon Charles (Devizes)
Wainwright, Richard (Colne Valley)


Grant, John (Islington C)
Moyle, Rt Hon Roland
Waldegrave, Hon William


Greenway, Harry
Mudd, David
Walker, Rt Hon Harold (Doncaster)


Grist, Ian
Murphy, Christopher
Walker, Bill (Perth & E Perthshire)


Hamilton, Michael (Salisbury)
Neale, Gerrard
Wall, Patrick


Hampson, Dr Keith
Needham, Richard
Waller, Gary


Hsnnam, John
Nelson, Anthony
Ward, John


Hardy, Peter
Normanton, Tom
Warren, Kenneth


Haynes, Frank
Oakes, Rt Hon Gordon
Watkins, David


Healey, Rt Hon Denis
O'Neill, Martin
Wellbeloved, James


Henderson, Barry
Onslow, Cranley
Wells, John (Maidstone)


Hicks, Robert
Orme, Rt Hon Stanley
Wells, Bowen (Hert'rd & Stev'nage)


Hogg, Hon Douglas (Grantham)
Osborn, John
Wheeler, John


Holland, Stuart (L'beth, Vauxhall)
Page, John (Harrow, West)
White, Frank R. (Bury & Radcliffe)


Home Robertson, John
Page, Richard (SW Hertfordshire)
Whitney, Raymond


Homewood, William
Palmer, Arthur
Wickenden, Keith


Hordern, Peter
Parker, John
Wilkinson, John


Howell, Ralph (North Norfolk)
Parry, Robert
Willey, Rt Hon Frederick


Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen North)
Pavitt, Laurie
Wilson, Gordon (Dundee East)


Hughes, Roy (Newport)
Pawsey, James
Winnick, David


Hunt, David (Wirral)
Pollock, Alexander
Winterton, Nicholas


Hunt, John (Ravensbourne)
Powell, Rt Hon J. Enoch (S Down)
Wolfson, Mark


Jessel, Toby
Powell, Raymond (Ogmore)
Woolmer, Kenneth


John, Brynmor
Prescott, John
Wriggtesworth, Ian


Johnson, James (Hull West)
Proctor, K. Harvey
Wright, Sheila


Kellett-Bowman, Mrs Elaine
Race, Reg
Young, David (Bolton East)


Kershaw, Anthony
Rathbone, Tim



Kitson, Sir Timothy
Rees, Rt Hon Merlyn (Leeds South)
TELLERS FOR THE AYES:


Knox, David
Rees-Davies, W. R.
Mr. Kevin McNamara and


Lambie, David
Rhys Williams, Sir Brandon
Mr. Eric Ogden

NOES


Best, Keith
Hooley, Frank
Penhaligon, David


Brown, Ronald W. (Hackney S)
Johnston, Russell (Inverness)
Price, Christopher (Lewisham West)


Cocks, Rt Hon Michael (Bristol S)
Jones, Barry (East Flint)
Rhodes James, Robert


Cryer, Bob
Kerr, Russell
Spearing, Nigel


Eden, Rt Hon Sir John
McKay, Allen (Penistone)
Stokes, John


English, Michael
MacKenzle, Rt Hon Gregor
Welsh, Michael


Foot, Rt Hon Michael
McWilliam, John
Williams, Rt Hon Alan (Swanses W)


Garel-Jones, Tristan
Major, John
Woodall, Alec


Garrett, W. E. (Wallsend)
Mellish, Rt Hon Robert



George, Bruce
Miller, Hal (Bromsgrove & Redditch)
TELLERS FOR THE NOES:


Hamilton, W. W. (Central Fife)
Morris, Rt Hon Alfred (Wythenshawe)
Mr. Peter Bottomley and


Harrison, Rt Hon Walter
Parris, Matthew
Mr. Nick Budgen


Higgins, Rt Hon Terence L.

NOES


Alexander, Richard
Buck, Antony
Fletcher, Alexander (Edinburgh N)


Alison, Michael
Budgen, Nick
Forman, Nigel


Alton, David
Burden, Sir Frederick
Fowler, Rt Hon Norman


Ancram, Michael
Butcher, John
Fox, Marcus


Arnold, Tom
Butler, Hon Adam
Fraser, Rt Hon Sir Hugh


Atkinson, David (B'mouth, East)
Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)
Fraser, Peter (South Angus)


Baker, Kenneth (St. Marylebone)
Carlisle, Rt Hon Mark (Runcorn)
Gardiner, George (Reigate)


Baker, Nicholas (North Dorset)
Chalker, Mrs. Lynda
Garel-Jones, Tristan


Banks, Robert
Channon, Rt Hon Paul
Gllmour, Rt Hon Sir Ian


Beaumont-Dark, Anthony
Chapman, Sydney
Goodhew, Victor


Bendall, Vivian
Churchill, W. S.
Goodlad, Alastalr


Benyon, W. (Buckingham)
Clark, Hon Alan (Plymouth, Sutton)
Gow, Ian


Berry, Hon Anthony
Clark, Sir William (Croydon South)
Gray, Hamish


Best, Keith
Clarke, Kenneth (Rushclltte)
Grist, Ian


Bevan, David Gilroy
Clegg, Sir Walter
Gummer, John Selwyn


Biffen, Rt Hon John
Cope, John
Hamilton, Michael (Salisbury)


Biggs-Davison, John
Corrie, John
Hampson, Dr Keith


Blackburn, John
Crouch, David
Hannam, John


Blaker, Peter
Dean, Paul (North Somerset)
Haselhurst, Alan


Body, Richard
Dorrell, Stephen
Havers, Rt Hon Sir Michael


Boscawen, Hon Robert
Dover, Denshore
Hayhoe, Barney


Bottomley, Peter (Woolwich West)
du Cann, Rt Hon Edward
Henderson, Barry


Bowden, Andrew
Dunn, Robert (Dactford)
Higgins, Rt Hon Terence L.


Boyson, Dr. Rhodes
Durant, Tony
Hogg, Hon Douglas (Grantham)


Bright, Graham
Eden, Rt Hon Sir John
Hordern, Peter


Brinton, Tim
Eggar, Timothy
Howe, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey


Brittan, Leon
Emery, Peter
Howell, Rt Hon David (Guildford)


Brooke, Hon Peter
Eyre, Reginald
Howell, Ralph (North Norfolk)


Brotherton, Michael
Fairbalrn, Nicholas
Hunt, David (Wirral)


Brown, Michael (Brigg & Sc'thorpe)
Fairgrieve, Russell
Hunt, John (Ravensbourne)


Browne, John (Wincheser)
Fenner, Mrs Peggy
Jenkin, Rt Hon Patrick


Bruce-Gardyne, John
Finsberg, Geoffrey
Jessel, Toby


Bryan, Sir Paut
Fisher, Sir Nigel
Jopling, Rt Hon Michael

Joseph, Rt Hon Sir Keith
Morrison, Hon Peter (City of Chester)
Shepherd, Colin (Hereford)


Kellett-Bowman, Mrs Elaine
Mudd, David
Shersby, Michael


Kershaw, Anthony
Murphy, Christopher
Silvester, Fred


King, Rt Hon Tom
Neale, Gerrard
Sims, Roger


Kitson, Sir Timothy
Needham, Richard
Skinner, Dennis


Lamont, Norman
Nelson, Anthony
Smith, Dudley (War. and Leam'ton)


Latham, Michael
Neubert, Michael
Speed, Keith


Lawrence, Ivan
Newton, Tony
Speller, Tony


Lawson, Nigel
Normanton, Tom
Spicer, Jim (West Dorset)


Lee, John
Nott, Rt Hon John
Spicer, Michael (S Worcestershire)


Le Marchant, Spencer
Onslow, Crantey
Stanley, John


Lennox-Boyd, Hon Mark
Oppenheim, Rt Hon Mrs Sally
Steen, Anthony


Lester, Jim (Beeston)
Osborn, John
Stevens, Martin


Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)
Page, John (Harrow, West)
Stewart, Ian (Hitchin)


Lloyd, Peter (Fareham)
Page, Richard (SW Hertfordshire)
Stewart, John (East Renfrewshire)


Luce, Richard
Parkinson, Cecil
Stokes, John


Lyell, Nicholas
Parris, Matthew
Stradling Thomas, J.


Macfarlane, Neil
Patten, Christopher (Bath)
Tapsell, Peter


MacGregor, John
Pattie, Geoffrey
Tebbit, Norman


MacKay, John (Argyll)
Pawsey, James
Thatcher, Rt Hon Mrs Margaret


Macmillan, Rt Hon M. (Farnham)
Penhallgon, David
Thompson, Donald


Madel, David
Percival, Sir Ian
Thorne. Neil (Ilford South)


Major, John
Pollock, Alexander
Townend, John (Bridlington)


Marlow, Tony
Powell, Rt Hon J. Enoch (S Down)
Trippier, David


Marshall, Michael (Arundel)
Prior, Rt Hon James
Uan-Straubenzee, W. R.


Marten, Neil (Banbury)
Proctor, K. Harvey
Viggers, Peter


Mates, Michael
Pym, Rt Hon Francis
Wakeham, John


Mather, Carol
Raison, Timothy
Waldegrave, Hon William


Maude, Rt Hon Angus
Rathbone, Tim
Walker, Bill (Perth & E Perthshire)


Mawby, Ray
Rees, Peter (Dover and Deal)
Wall, Patrick


Mawhinney, Or Brian
Rees-Davies, W. R.
Waller, Gary


Maxwell-Hyslop, Robin
Rhodes James, Robert
Ward, John


Mayhew, Patrick
Rhys Williams, Sir Brandon
Warren, Kenneth


Meyer, Sir Anthony
Ridley, Hon Nicholas
Wells, John (Maidstone)


Miller, Hal (Bromsgrove & Redditch)
Rifkind, Malcolm
Wheeler, John


Mills, Peter (West Devon)
Rippon, Rt Hon Geoffrey
Whitelaw, Rt Hon William


Miscampbell, Norman
Roberts, Michael (Cardiff NW)
Whitney, Raymond


Mitchell, David (Basingstoke)
Roberts, Wyn (Conway)
Wickenden, Keith


Moate, Roger
Robinson, Peter (Belfast East)
Wilkinson, John


Molyneaux, James
Rossi, Hugh
Wolfson, Mark


Monro, Hector
Sainsbury, Hon Timothy
Young, Sir George (Acton)


Montgomery, Fergus
St. John-Stevas, Rt Hon Norman



Moore, John
Scott, Nicholas
TELLERS FOR THE NOES:


Morgan, Geraint
Shaw, Giles (Pudsey)
Lord James Douglas-Hamilton and


Morris, Michael (Northampton, Sth)
Shaw, Michael (Scarborough)
Mr. David Waddineton.


Morrison, Hon Charles (Devizes)

Division No. 415]
AYES
 [12.12 am


Archer, Rt Hon Peter
Cunningham, Dr John (Whitehaven)
Garrett, John (Norwich S)


Ashton, Joe
Dalyell, Tarn
George, Bruce


Atkinson, Norman (H'gey, Tott'ham)
Davidson, Arthur
Gilbert, Rt Hon Dr John


Bagier, Gordon A. T.
Davies, Ifor (Gower)
Goodlad, Alaslair


Baker, Kenneth (St. Marylebone)
Davis, Clinton (Hackney Central)
Graham, Ted


Barnertt, Guy (Greenwich)
Davis, Terry (B'rm'ham, Stechford)
Grant, George (Morpeth)


Barrett, Rt Hon Joel (Heywood)
Deakins, Eric
Grant, John (Islington C)


Beith, A. J
Dempsey, James
Greenway, Harry


Belt, Sir Ronald
Dewar, Donald
Hamilton, W. W. (Central Fife)


Bendall, Vivian
Dixon, Donald
Hannam, John


Bennett, Andrew (Stockport N)
Dobson, Frank
Hardy, Peter


Blackburn, John
Dormand, Jack
Harrison, Rt Hon Walter


Blackburn, John
Dorrell, Stephen
Haynes, Frank


Boothroyd, Miss Belly
Douglas, Dick
Healey, Rt Hon Denis


Bottomley, Peter (Woolwich West)
Douglas-Mann, Bruce
Hicks, Robert


Bowden, Andrew
Dover, Denshore
Higgins, Rt Hon Terence L.


Bright, Graham
Dubs, Alfred
Hogg, Norman (E Dunbartonshire)


Brown, Hugh D. (Provan)
du Cann, Rt Hon Edward
Holland, Stuart (L'beth, Vauxhall)


Brown, Robert C. (Newcastle W)
Duffy, A. E. P.
Home Robertson, John


Brown, Ronald W. (Hackney S)
Dunn, James A. (Liverpool, Kirkdale)
Homewood, William


Buchan, Norman
Dunwoody, Mrs Gwyneth
Hooley, Frank


Buck, Antony
Dykes, Hugh
Hordern, Peter


Callaghan, Jim (Middleton & P)
Eastham, Ken
Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen North)


Campbell-Savours, Dale
Eggar, Timothy
Hughes, Roy (Newport)


Cartwright, John




Churchill, W. S.
Emery, Peter
Hunt, John (Ravensbourne)


Clark, Dr. David (South Shields)
English, Michael
John, Brynmor


Clegg, Sir Walter
Evans, John (Newton)
Johnson, James (Hull West)


Cocks, Rt Hon Michael (Bristol S)
Fauids, Andrew
Johnston, Russell (Inverness)


Cohen, Stanley
Field, Frank
Jones, Barry (East Flint)


Concannon, Rt Hon J. D.
Fisher, Sir Nigel
Kaufman, Rt Hon Gerald


Conlan, Bernard
Foot, Rt Hon Michael
Kerr, Russell


Cowans, Harry
Forrester, John
Kinnock, Neil


Cralgen, J. M. (Glasgow, Maryhili)
Foster, Derek
Kitson, Sir Timothy


Crowther, J. S.
Fraser, John (Lambeth, Norwood)
Knox, David


Cryer, Bob
Fraser, Peter (South Angus)
Lambie, David


Cunningham, George (Islington S)
Gardiner, George (Reigate)
Lamond, James

Lawrence, Ivan
O'Neill, Martin
Splcer, Jim (West Dorset)


Lead bitter, Ted
Orme, Rt Hon Stanley
Steen, Anthony


Leighton, Ronald
Osborn, John
Stewart, Allan (East Renfrewshire)


Lewis, Arthur (Newham North West)
Palmer, Arthur
Stoddart, David


Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)
Parker, John
Stokes, John


Litherland, Robert
Parry, Robert
Stott, Roger


Lofthouse, Geoffrey
Pavitt, Laurie
Strang, Gavin


Lyon, Alexander (York)
Powell, Raymond (Ogmore)
Straw, Jack


McCartney, Hugh
Prescott, John
Tapsell, Peter


McElhone, Frank
Price, Christopher (Lewlsham West)
Thomas, Mike (Newcastle East)


McKay, Allen (Penistone)
Race, Reg
Thompson, Donald


McKelvey, William
Rees, Rt Hon Merlyn (Leeds South)
Tinn, James


MacKenzie, Rt Hon Gregor
Rees-Davies, W. R.
van-Straubenzee, W. R.


Maclennan, Robert
Rhodes James, Robert
Varley, Rt Hon Eric G.


McNally, Thomas
Rhys Williams, Sir Brandon
Walnwright, Edwin (Dearne Valley)


McWilliam, John
Roberts, Allan (Bootle)
Walnwright, Richard (Colne Valley)


Marlow, Tony
Roberts, Gwilym (Cannock)
Walker, Rt Hon Harold (Doncaster)


Marshall, Jim (Leicester South)
Robinson, Geoffrey (Coventry NW)
Watkins, David


Martin, Michael (Gl'gow, Springb'rn)
Rodgers, Rt Hon William
Wellbeloved, James


Mawby, Ray
Rooker, J. W.
Wells, Bowen (Hert'rd & Stev'nage)


Mawhinney, Dr Brian
Ross, Ernest (Dundee West)
Welsh, Michael


Maxwell-Hyslop, Robin
Sandelson, Neville
White, Frank R. (Bury & Radcliffe)


Mellish, Rt Hon Robert
Scott, Nicholas
Wllley, Rt Hon Frederick


Millan, Rt Hon Bruce
Sever, John
Wilson, Gordon (Dundee East)


Miller, Dr M. S. (East Kilbride)
Sheer man, Barry
Winnick, David


Miscampbell, Norman
Sheldon, Rt Hon Robert (A'ton-u-L)
Winterton, Nicholas


Mitchell, Austin (Grimsby)
Shepherd, Colin (Hereford)
Wolfson, Mark


Mitchell, R. C. (Solon, ltchen)
Shersby, Michael
Woodall, Alec


Morgan, Geraint
Silkin, Rt Hon John (Deptford)
Woolmer, Kenneth


Morris, Rt Hon Alfred (Wythenshawe)
Skeet, T. H. H.
Wrigglesworth, Ian


Morris, Rt Hon Charles (Openshaw)
Skinner, Dennis
Wright, Sheila


Morrison, Hon Charles (Devizes)
Smith, Dudley (War. and Leam'ton)
Young, David (Bolton East)


Morton, George
Smith, Rt Hon J. (North Lanarkshire)



Neale, Gerrard
Snape, Peter
TELLERS FOR THE AYES


Oakes, Rt Hon Gordon
Soley, Clive
Mr. Kevin McMamara and


Ogden, Eric
Spearing, Nigel
Sir Paul Bryan

NOES


Alexander, Richard
Fairgrieve, Russell
Major, John


Alison, Michael
Finsberg, Geoffrey
Marshall, Michael (Arundel)


Alton, David
Fletcher, Alexander (Edinburgh N)
Marten, Neil (Banbury)


Ancram, Michael
Forman, Nigel
Mather, Carol


Arnold, Tom
Fowler, Rt Hon Norman
Maude, Rt Hon Angus


Atkinson, David (B'mouth, East)
Fox, Marcus
Mayhew, Patrick


Baker, Nicholas (North Dorset)
Fraser, Rt Hon H. (Stafford & St)
Meyer, Sir Anthony


Banks, Robert
Garel-Jones, Tristan
Miller, Hal (Bromsgrove & Redditch)


Beaumont-Dark, Anthony
Gilmour, Rt Hon Sir Ian
Mills, Peter (West Devon)


Benyon, W. (Buckingham)
Goodhew, Victor
Mitchell, David (Basingstoke)


Berry, Hon Anthony
Gow, Ian
Moate, Roger


Besl, Keith
Gray, Hamish
Molyneaux, James


Bevan, David Gilroy
Grist, tan
Monro, Hector


Bitfen, Rt Hon John
Gummer, John Selwyn
Montgomery, Fergus


Blaker, Peter
Hamilton, Michael (Salisbury)
Moore, John


Body, Richard
Hampson, Dr Keith
Morris, Michael (Northampton, Sth)


Boyson, Dr. Rhodes
Haselhurst, Alan
Morrison, Hon Peter (City of Chester)


Brinton, Tim
Havers, Rt Hon Sir Michael
Mudd, David


Brittan, Leon
Hayhoe, Barney
Murphy, Christopher


Brooke, Hon Peter
Henderson, Barry
Needham, Richard


Brotherton, Michael
Hogg, Hon Douglas (Grantham)
Nelson, Anthony


Brown, Michael (Brigg & Sc'thorpe)
Howe, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey
Neubert, Michael


Browne, John (Winchester)
Howell, Rt Hon David (Guildford)
Newton, Tony


Bruce-Gardyne, John
Howell, Ralph (North Norfolk)
Normanton, Tom


Budgen, Nick
Hunt, David (Wirral)
Nott, Rt Hon John


Burden, F. A.
Jenkin, Rt Hon Patrick
Onslow, Cranley


Butcher, John
Jessel, Toby
Oppenheim, Rt Hon Mrs Salty


Butler, Hon Adam
Jopling, Rt Hon Michael
Page, John (Harrow, West)


Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)
Joseph, Rt Hon Sir Keith
Page, Richard (SW Hertfordshire)


Carlisle, Rt Hon Mark (Runcorn)
Kellett-Bowman, Mrs Elaine
Parkinson, Cecil


Chalker, Mrs. Lynda
Kershaw, Anthony
Parrls, Matthew


Channon, Paul
King, Rt Hon Tom
Patten, Christopher (Bath)


Chapman, Sydney
Lamont, Norman
Pattie, Geoffrey


Clark, Hon Alan (Plymouth, Sutton)
Latham, Michael
Pawsey, James


Clark, Sir William (Croydon South)
Lawson, Nigel
Penhaligon, David


Clarke, Kenneth (Rushcliffe)
Lee, John
Percival, Sir Ian


Cope, John
Le Marchant, Spencer
Powell, Rt Hon J. Enoch (S Down)


Corrle, John
Lennox-Boyd, Hon Mark
Prior, Rt Hon James


Crouch, David
Lester, Jim (Beeston)
Proctor, K. Harvey


Dean, Paul (North Somerset)
Lloyd, Peter (Fareham)
Pym, Rt Hon Francis


Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James
Luce, Richard
Raison, Timothy


Dunn, Robert (Dartford)
Lyell, Nicholas
Rathbone, Tim


Durant, Tony
Macfarlane, Nell
Rees, Peter (Dover and Deal)


Eden, Rt Hon Sir John
MacKay, John (Argyll)
Ridley, Hon Nicholas


Eyre, Reginald
Macmillan, Rt Hon M. (Farnham)
Rifklnd, Malcolm


Fairbairn, Nicholas
Madel, David
Rippon, Rt Hon Geoffrey

Roberts, Michael (Cardiff NW)
Stevens, Martin
Waller, Gary


Roberts, Wyn (Conway)
Stewart, Ian (Hitchin)
Warren, Kenneth


Robinson, Peter (Belfast East)
Stradling Thomas, J.
Wells, John (Maidstone)


Rossi, Hugh
Tebblt, Norman
Wheeler, John


Sainsbury, Hon Timothy
Thatcher, Rt Hon Mrs Margaret
Whitelaw, Rt Hon William


St. John-Stevas, Rt Hon Norman
Thorne, Nell (Ilford South)
Whitney, Raymond


Shaw, Giles (Pudsey)
Townend, John (Bridlington)
Wickenden, Keith


Silvester, Fred
Trippier, David
Wilkinson, John


Sims, Roger
Viggers, Peter
Young, Sir George (Acton)


Speed, Keith
Waddington, David



Speller, Tony
Wakeham, John
TELLERS FOR THE NOES:


Spicer, Michael (S Worcestershire)
Waldegrave, Hon William
Mr. Robert Boscawen and


Stanley, John
Walker, Bill (Perth & E Perthshire)
Mr. John MacGregor


Steel, Rt Hon David

Division No. 416]
AYES
 [12.30 am


Archer, Rt Hon Peter
Field, Frank
Mawby, Ray


Ashton, Joe
Fisher, Sir Nigel
Mawhinney, Dr Brian


Atkinson, Norman (H'gey, Tott'ham)
Foot, Rt Hon Michael
Maxwell-Hyslop, Robin


Bagier, Gordon A. T.
Forrester, John
Mellish, Rt Hon Robert


Baker, Kenneth (St. Marylebone)
Foster, Derek
Meyer, Sir Anthony


Barnett, Guy (Greenwich)
Fraser, John (Lambeth, Norwood)
Millan, Rt Hon Bruce


Sarnett, Rt Hon Joel (Heywood)
Freud, Clement
Miller, Hal (Bromsgrove & Redditch)


Beith, A. J.
Gardiner, George (Reigate)
Miller, Dr M. S. (East Kilbride)


Bell, Sir Ronald
Garrett, John (Norwich S)
Miscampbell, Norman


Bendall, Vivian
George, Bruce
Mitchell, Austin (Grimsby)


Bennett, Andrew (Stockport N)
Gilbert, Rt Hon Dr John
Mitchell, R. C. (Soton, Itchen)


Biggs-Davison, John
Goodlad, Alastair
Montgomery, Fergus


Blackburn, John
Graham, Ted
Morgan, Geralnt


Boothroyd, Miss Betty
Grant, George (Morpeth)
Morris, Rt Hon Alfred (Wythenshawe)


Bottomley, Peter (Woolwich West)
Grant, John (Islington C)
Morris, Rt Hon Charles (Openshaw)


Bowden, Andrew
Greenway, Harry
Morton, George


Bright, Graham
Hamilton, W. W. (Central File)
Murphy, Christopher


Brotherton, Michael
Hannam, John
Neale, Gerrard


Brown, Hugh D. (Provan)
Hardy, Peter
Normanton, Tom


Brown, Robert C. (Newcastle W)
Harrison, Rt Hon Walter
Oakes, Rt Hon Gordon


Brvan, Sir Paul
Haynes, Frank
O'Neill, Martin


Buchan, Norman
Healey. Rt Hon Denis
Orme, Rt Hon Stanley


Buck, Antony
Hicks, Robert
Osborn, John


Cadbury, Jocelyn
Higgins, Rt Hon Terence L.
Parker, John


Callaghan, Jim (Middleton & P)
Hogg, Hon Douglas (Grantham)
Parry, Robert


Campbell-Savours, Dale
Hogg, Norman (E Dunbartonshire)
Pavitt, Laurie


Cartwright, John
Holland, Stuart (L'beth, Vauxhall)
Pawsey, James


Churchill, W. S.
Home Robertson, John
Penhaligon, David


Clark, Dr. David (South Shields)
Homewood, William
Powell, Raymond (Ogmore)


Clegg, Sir Walter
Hooley, Frank
Prescott, John


Cocks, Rt Hon Michael (Bristol S)
Hordern, Peter
Price, Christopher (Lewisham West)


Cohen, Stanley
Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen North)
Rees, Rt Hon Merlyn (Leeds South)


Concannon, Rt Hon J. D.
Hughes, Roy (Newport)
Rees-Davies, W. R.


Conian, Bernard
Hunt, John (Ravensbourne)
Rhys Williams, Sir Brandon


Cook, Robin F.
Jessel, Toby
Roberts, Allan (Bootle)


Cowans, Harry
John, Brynmor
Roberts, Gwilym (Cannock)


Craigen, J. M. (Glasgow, Maryhill)
Johnson, James (Hull West)
Robinson, Geoffrey (Coventry NW)


Crowther, J. S.
Johnston, Russell (Inverness)
Robinson, Peter (Belfast East)


Cryer, Bob
Jones, Barry (East Flint)
Rodgers, Rt Hon William


Cunningham, George (Islington S)
Kaufman, Rt Hon Gerald
Rooker, J. W.


Cunningham, Dr John (Whitehaven)
Kinnock, Neil
Ross, Ernest (Dundee West)


Dalyell, Tam
Kitson, Sir Timothy
Sandelson, Neville


Davidson, Arthur
Knox, David
Scott, Nicholas


Davies, Ifor (Gower)
Lambie, David
Sever, John


Davis, Clinton (Hackney Central)
Lamond, James
Shearman, Barry


Davis, Terry (B'rm'ham, Stechford)
Lawrence, Ivan
Sheldon, Rt Hon Robert (A'ton-u-L)


Deakirvs, Eric
Leadbitter, Ted
Silkin, Rt Hon John (Deptford)


Dempsey, James
Lee, John
Skeet, T. H. H.


Dewar, Donald
Leighton, Ronald
Skinner, Dennis


Dobson, Frank
Lewis, Arthur (Newham North West)
Smith, Dudley (War. and Leam'ton)


Dormand, Jack
Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)
Smith, Rt Hon J. (North Lanarkshire)


Dorrell, Stephen
Litherland, Robert
Soley, Clive


Douglas, Dick
Lofthouse, Geoffrey
Spearing, Nigel


Douglas-Mann, Bruce
Lyell, Nicholas
Steel, Rt Hon David


Dover, Denshore
Lyon, Alexander (York)
Steen, Anthony


Dubs. Alfred
McCartney, Hugh
Stoddart, David


du Cann, Rt Hon Edward
McElhone, Frank
Stott, Roger


Duffy, A. E. P.
McKay, Allen (Penistone)
Strang, Gavin


Dunn, James A. (Liverpool, Kirkdale)
McKelvey, William
Straw, Jack


Dunwoody, Mrs Gwyneth
MacKenzie, Rt Hon Gregor
Tapsell, Peter


Durant, Tony
Maclennan, Robert
Thomas, Mike (Newcastle East)


Dykes, Hugh
McNally, Thomas
Thompson, Donald


Eastham, Ken
McNamara, Kevin
Tinn, James


Eggar, Timothy
McWilllam, John
Townend, John (Bridlington)


Emery, Peter
Madel, David
Trippier, David


English, Michael
Mariow, Tony
van Straubenzee, W. R.


Evans, John (Newton)
Marshall, Jim (Leicester South)
Varley, Rt Hon Eric G.


Faulds, Andrew
Martin, Michael (Gl'gow, Springb'rn)
Wainwright, Edwin (Dearne Valley)

Wainwright, Richard (Colne Valley)
Wheeler, John
Woolmer, Kenneth


Walker, Rt Hon Harold (Doncaster)
White, Frank R. (Bury & Radcliffe)
Wrigglesworth, Ian


Wall, Patrick
Willey, Rt Hon Frederick
Wright, Sheila


Waller, Gary
Wilson, Gordon (Dundee East)
Young, David (Bolton East)


Ward, John
Winnick, David



Watklns, David
Winterton, Nicholas
TELLERS FOR THE AYES'.


Wellbeloved, James
Wolfson, Mark
Mr. Charles Morrison and


Welsh, Michael
Woodall, Alec
Mr. Eric Ogden.

NOES


Alison, Michael
Gummer, John Selwyn
Pattle, Geoffrey


Alton, David
Hamilton, Michael (Salisbury)
Perclval, Sir Ian


Ancram, Michael
Hampson, Dr Kelth
Powell, Rt Hon J. Enoch (S Down)


Arnold, Tom
Haselhurst, Alan
Prior, Rt Hon James


Atkinson, David (B'mouth, East)
Havers, Rt Hon Sir Michael
Proctor, K. Harvey


Baker, Nicholas (North Dorset)
Hayhoe, Barney
Pym, Rt Hon Francis


Banks, Robert
Henderson, Barry
Race, Reg


Beaumont-Dark, Anthony
Howe, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey
Raison, Timothy


Benyon, W. (Buckingham)
Howell, Rt Hon David (Guildford)
Rathbone, Tim


Berry, Hon Anthony
Hunt, David (Wirral)
Rees, Peter (Dover and Deal)


Best, Keith
Jenkin, Rt Hon Patrick
Ridley, Hon Nicholas


Sevan, David Gilroy
Jopllng, Rt Hon Michael
Rifkind, Malcolm


Biffen, Rt Hon John
Joseph, Rt Hon Sir Keith
Rippon, Rt Hon Geoffsey


Blaker, Peter
Kellett-Bowman, Mrs Elaine
Roberts, Michael (Cardiff NW)


Body, Richard
Kershaw, Anthony
Roberls, Wyn (Conway)


Boyson, Dr. Rhodes
King, Rt Hon Tom
Rossi, Hugh


Brlnton, Tim
Lamont, Norman
St. John-Stevas, Rt Hon Norman


Brittan, Leon
Latham, Michael
Shaw, Giles (Pudsey)


Brooke, Hon Peter
Lawson, Nigel
Shaw, Michael (Scarborough)


Brown, Michael (Brigg & Sc'thorpe)
Le Marchant, Spencer
Shepherd, Colin (Hereford)


Browne, John (Winchester)
Lennox-Boyd, Hon Mark
Shersby, Michael


Bruce-Gardyne, John
Lester, Jim (Beeston)
Silvester, Fred


Budgen, Nick
Lloyd, Peter (Fareham)
Sims, Roger


Burden, F. A.
Luce, Richard
Speed, Keith


Butcher, John
Macfariane, Nell
Speller, Tony


Carlisie, Kenneth (Lincoln)
MacGregor, John
Spicer, Jim (West Dorset)


Carlisie, Rt Hon Mark (Runcorn)
MacKay, John (Argyll)
Splcer, Michael (S Worcestershire)


Chalker, Mrs. Lynda
Macmillan, Rt Hon M. (Farnham)
Stanley, John


Channon, Rt Hon Paul
Major, John
Stevens, Martin


Chapman, Sydney
Marshall, Michael (Arundel)
Stewart, Ian (Hitchin)


Clark, Hon Alan (Plymouth, Sutton)
Marten, Neil (Banbury)
Stewart, John (East Renfrewshire)


Clark, Sir William (Croydon South)
Maude, Rt Hon Angus
Stokes, John


Clarke, Kenneth (Rushcliffe)
Mayhew, Patrick
Stradling Thomas, J.


Cope, John
Mills, Peter (West Devon)
Tebbit, Norman


Carrie, John
Mitchell, David (Basingstoke)
Thatcher, Rt Hon Mrs Margaret


Crouch David
Moate, Roger
Thorne, Nell (Ilford South)


Dean, Paul (North Somerset)
Molyneaux, James
Viggers, Peter


Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James
Monro, Hector
Waddington, David


Dunn, Robert (Dartford)
Moore, John
Wakeham, John


Eden, Rt Hon Sir John
Morris, Michael (Northampton, Sth)
Waldegrave, Hon William


Eyre, Reginald
Morrison, Hon Peter (City of Chester)
Walker, Bill (Perth & E Perthshire)


Falrbalrn, Nicholas
Mudd, David
Warren, Kenneth


Fairgrieve, Russell
Needham, Richard
Wells, John (Maidstone)


Finsberg, Geoffrey
Nelson, Anthony
Wells, Bowen (Hert'rd & Stev'nage)


Fletcher, Alexander (Edinburgh N)
Neubert, Michael
Whitelaw, Rt Hon William


Forman, Nigel
Newton, Tony
Whitney, Raymond


Fowler, Rt Hon Norman
Nott, Rt Hon John
Wickenden, Keith


Fox, Marcus
Onslow, Cranley
Wilkinson, John


Fraser, Rt Hon H. (Stafford & St)
Oppenheim, Rt Hon Mrs Sally
Williams, Delwyn (Montgomery)


Fraser, Peter (South Angus)
Page, John (Harrow, West)
Young, Sir George (Acton)


Garel-Jones, Tristan
Page, Richard (SW Hertfordshire)



Gilmour, Rt Hon Sir Ian
Parkinson, Cecil
TELLERS FOR THE NOES:


Gow, Ian
Parris, Matthew
Mr. Carol Mather and


Gray, Hamish
Patten, Christopher (Bath)
Mr. Robert Boscawen.


Grist, Ian

Division No. 417]
AYES
[12.40 am


Alton, David
Brown, Hugh D. (Provan)
Cowane, Harry


Archer, Rt Hon Peter
Brown, Robert C. (Newcastle W)
Craigen, J. M. (Glasgow, Maryhill)


Ashton, Joe
Brown, Ronald W. (Hackney S)
Crowther, J. S.


Atkinson, Norman (H'gey, Tott'ham)
Browne, John (Wincheser)
Cryer, Bob


Bagier, Gordon A. T.
Buchan, Norman
Cunningham, George (Islington S)


Baker, Kenneth (St. Marylebone)
Buck, Antony
Cunningham, Dr John (Whitehaven)


Barnett, Guy (Greenwich)
Burden, Sir Frederick
Daiyell, Tam


Beith, A. J.
Callaghan, Jim (Middleton & P)
Davidson, Arthur


Bell, Sir Ronald
Campbell-Savours, Dale
Davles, Ifor (Gower)


Bendall, Vivian
Cartwrighl, John
Davis, Clinton (Hackney Central)


Bennett, Andrew (Stockport N)
Churchill, W. S.
Davis, Terry (B'rm'ham, Stechford)


Best, Keith
Clark, Dr. David (South Shields)
Deakins, Eric


Boothroyd, Miss Betty
Cocks, Rt Hon Michael (Bristol S)
Dean, Paul (North Somerset)


Bottomley, Peter (Woolwich West)
Cohen, Stanley
Dempsey, James


Bowden, Andrew
Concannon, Rt Hon J. D.
Dewar, Donald


Bright. Graham
Conlan, Bernard
Dixon, Donald

Dobson, Frank
Kershaw, Anthony
Robinson, Geoffrey (Coventry NW)


Dormand, Jack
Kinnock, Nell
Rodgers, Rt Hon William


Douglas, Dick
Knox, David
Rooker, J. W.


Douglas-Mann, Bruce
Lambie, David
Ross, Ernest (Dundee West)


Dubs, Alfred
Lamond, James
Sandelson, Neville


Duffy, A. E. P.
Lawrence, Ivan
Scott, Nicholas


Dunn, James A. (Liverpool, Kirkdale)
Leadbitter, Ted
Sever, John


Dunwoody, Mrs Gwyneth
Leighton, Ronald
Sheerman, Barry


Durartt, Tony
Lewis, Arthur (Newham North West)
Sheldon, Rt Hon Robert (A'ton-u-L)


Dykes, Hugh
Lltherland, Robert
Shepherd, Colin (Hereford)


Eastham, Ken
Loflhouse, Geoffrey
Shersby, Michael


Eggar, Timothy
Lyon, Alexander (York)
Silkin, Rt Hon John (Deptford)


Emery, Peter
McCartney, Hugh
Skeet, T.H. H.


English, Michael
McElhone, Frank
Skinner, Dennis


Evans, John (Newton)
McKay, Allen (Penistone)
Smith, Rt Hon J. (North Lanarkshire)


Faulds, Andrew
MacKay, John (Argyll)
Soley, Clive


Field, Frank
McKelvey, William
Steel, Rt Hon David


Fisher, Sir Nigel
MacKenzie, Rt Hon Gregor
Steen, Anthony


Foot, Rt Hon Michael
Maclennan, Robert
Stewart, Allan (East Renfrewshire)


Forrester, John
McNally, Thomas
Stoddart, David


Foster, Derek
McWilliam, John
Stott, Roger


Fraser, John (Lambeth, Norwood)
Marlow, Tony
Strang, Gavin


Freud, Clement
Marshall, Jim (Leicester South)
Straw, Jack


Gardiner, George (Reigate)
Martin, Michael (Gl'gow, Springb'rn)
Tapsell, Peter


Garrett, John (Norwich S)
Mawby, Ray
Thomas, Mike (Newcastle East)


George, Bruce
Mawhinney, Dr Brian
Thompson, Donald


Gilbert, Rt Hon Dr John
Maxwell-Hyslop, Robin
Tinn, James


Graham, Ted
Mellish, Rt Hon Robert
Trippier, David


Grant, George (Morpeth)
Miller, Dr M. S. (East Kilbride)
Varley, Rt Hon Eric G.


Grant, John (Islington C)
Miscampbell, Norman
Wainwright, Edwin (Dearne Valley)


Greenway, Harry
Mitchell, Austin (Grimsby)
Wainwright, Richard (Colne Valley)


Hamilton, W. W. (Central Fife)
Mitchell, R. C. (Soton, Itchen)
Walker, Rt Hon Harold (Doncaster)


Hannam, John
Morgan, Geraint
Watkins, David


Hardy, Peter
Morris, Rt Hon Alfred (Wythenshawe)
Wellbeloved, James


Harrison, Rt Hon Walter
Morris, Rt Hon Charles (Openshaw)
Wells, Bowen (Hert'rd & Stev'nage)


Haynes, Frank
Morton, George
Weish, Michael


Healey, Rt Hon Denis
Neale, Gerrard
Wheeler, John


Hicks, Robert
Oakes, Rt Hon Gordon
White, Frank R. (Bury & Radcliffe)


Hogg, Norman (E Dunbartonshire)
O'Neill, Martin
Willey, Rt Hon Frederick


Holland, Stuart (L'beth, Vauxhall)
Orme, Rt Hon Stanley
Williams, Delwyn (Montgomery)


Home Robertson, John
Palmer, Arthur
Wilson, Gordon (Dundee East)


Homewood, William
Parker, John
Winnick, David


Hooley, Frank
Parry, Robert
Winterton, Nicholas


Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen North)
Pavitt, Laurie
Woodall, Alec


Hughes, Roy (Newport)
Penhaligon, David
Woolmer, Kenneth


Hunt, John (Ravensbourne)
Prescott, John
Wrigglesworth, Ian


John, Brynmor
Price, Christopher (Lewisham West)
Wright, Shella


Johnson, James (Hull West)
Proctor, K. Harvey
Young, David (Bolton East)


Johnston, Russell (Inverness)
Race, Reg



Jones, Barry (East Flint)
Rees, Rt Hon Merlyn (Leeds South)
TELLERS FOR THE AYES:


Kaufman, Rt Hon Gerald
Rees-Davies, W. R.
Mr. Kevin McNamara and


Kerr, Russell
Roberts, Gwilym (Cannock)
Mr. Eric Ogden

NOES


Alison, Michael
Cope, John
Hunt, David (Wirral)


Ancram, Michael
Corrle, John
Jenkin, Rt Hon Patrick


Arnold, Tom
Crouch, Cavid
Jessel, Toby


Baker, Nicholas (North Dorset)
Dorrell, Stephen
Jopling, Rt Hon Michael


Banks, Robert
Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James
Joseph, Rt Hon Sir Kelth


Beaumont-Dark, Anthony
Dover, Denshore
Kellett-Bowman, Mrs Elaine


Benyon, W. (Buckingham)
Eden, Rt Hon Sir John
King, Rt Hon Tom


Berry, Hon Anthony
Eyre, Reginald
Lamont, Norman


Bevan, Drvid Gilroy
Fairbairn, Nicholas
Latham, Michael


Biffen, Rt Hon John
Fairgrieve, Russell
Lawson, Nigel


Biggs-Davison, John
Fenner, Mrs Peggy
Le Marchant, Spencer


Blaker, Peter
Finsberg, Geoffrey
Lennox-Boyd, Hon Mark


Body, Richard
Fletcher, Alexander (Edinburgh N)
Lester, Jim (Beeston)


Boscawen, Hon Robert
Forman, Nigel
Luce, Richard


Boyson, Dr. Rhodes
Fowler, Rt Hon Norman
Macfarlane, Nell


Brinton, Tim
Fox, Marcus
MacGregor, John


Brittan, Lean
Fraser, Peter (South Angus)
Macmillan, Rt Hon M. (Farnham)


Ercoke, Hon Peter
Garel-Jones, Tristan
Madel, David


Brotherton, Michael
Gilmour, Rt Hon Sir Ian
Marshall, Michael (Arundel)


Brown, Michael (Brigg & Sc'thorpe)
Gow, Ian
Marten, Neil (Banbury)


Budgen, Nick
Gray, Hamish
Mather, Carol


Butcher, John
Grist, Ian
Maude, Rt Hon Angus


Cadbury, Jocelyn
Gummer, John Selwyn
Mayhew, Patrick


Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)
Hamilton, Michael (Salisbury)
Miller, Hal (Bromsgrove & Redditch)


Carlisle, R' Hon Mark (Runcorn)
Hampson, Dr Keith
Mills, Peter (West Devon)


Chalker, Mrs. Lynda
Haselhurst, Alan
Mitchell, David (Basingstoke)


Channon, Paul
Havers, Rt Hon Sir Michael
Moate, Roger


Chapman, Sydney
Hayhoe, Barney
Molyneaux, James


Clark, Hon Alan (Plymouth, Sutton)
Henderson, Barry
Monro, Hector


Clark, Sir William (Croydon South)
Howe, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey
Moore, John


Clarke, Kenneth (Rushcliffe)
Howell, Rt Hon David (Guildford)
Morrison, Hon Peter (City of Chesfer)

Mudd, David
Ridley, Hon Nicholas
Thatcher, Rt Hon Mrs Margaret


Murphy, Christopher
Rifklnd, Malcolm
Thorne, Neil (llford South)


Nelson, Anthony
Roberts, Michael (Cardiff NW)
Townend, John (Bridlington)


Neubert, Michael
Roberts, Wyn (Conway)
Vlggers, Peler


Normanton, Tom
Robinson, Peter (Belfast East)
Wakeham, John


Nott, fit Hon John
Rossi, Hugh
Waldegrave, Hon William


Oppenheim, Rt Hon Mrs Sally
Sainsbury, Hon Timothy
Walker, Bill (Perth & E Perthshire)


Parkinson, Cecil
St. John-Stevas, Rt Hon Norrmin
Waller, Gary


Parris, Matthew
Shaw, Giles (Pudsey)
Ward, John


Patten, Christopher (Bath)
Shaw, Michael (Scarborough)
Wanton, Kenneth


Pattle, Geoffrey
Silvester, Fred
Wells, John (Maidstone)


Pawsey, James
Sims, Roger
Whltelaw, Rt Hon William


Percival, Sir Ian
Smith, Dudley (War. and Learr'ton)
Whitney, Raymond


Powell, Rt Hon J. Enoch (S Down)
Speed, Keith
Wickenden, Keith


Prior, Rt Hon James
Speller, Tony
Wilkinson, John


Pym, Rt Hon Francis
Splcer, Jim (Wast Dorset)
Wolfson, Mark


Raison, Timothy
Stanley, John
Young, Sir George (Acton)


Rathbone, Tim
Stevens, Martin



Rees, Peter (Dover and Deal)
Stewart, Ian (Hltchin)
TELLERS FOR THE NOES:


Rhodes James, Robert
Stradllng Thomas, J.
Mr. David Waddington and


Rhys Williams, Sir Brandon
Tebbit, Norman
Mr. Tony Newton

Division No. 418]
AYES
 [1.05 am


Alton, David
Field, Frank
Morris, Rt Hon Charles (Openshaw)


Archer, Rt Hon Peter
Foot, Rt Hon Michael
Morrison, Hon Charles (Devizes)


Ashton, Joe
Forrester, John
Morton, George


Atkinson, Norman (H'gey, Tott'ham)
Foster, Derek
Neale, Gerrard


Baker, Kenneth (St. Marylebone)
Fraser, John (Lambeth, Norwood)
Oakes, Rt Hon Gordon


Barnett, Guy (Greenwich)
Freud, Clement
O'Neill, Martin


Beith, A. J.
Gardiner, George (Reigate)
Orme, Rt Hon Stanley


Bell, Sir Ronald
Garrett, John (Norwich S)
Palmer, Arthur


Bennett, Andrew (Stockport N)
George, Bruce
Parker, John


Best, Keith
Gilbert, Rt Hon Dr John
Parry, Robert


Boothroyd, Miss Betty
Graham, Ted
Pavitt, Laurie


Bottomley, Peter (Woolwich West)
Grant, George (Morpeth)
Penhaligon, David


Brotherton, Michael
Grant, John (Islington C)
Powell, Raymond (Ogmore)


Brown, Hugh D. (Proven)
Greenway, Harry
Prescott, John


Brown, Robert C. (Newcastle W)
Hamilton, W. W. (Central Fife)
Price, Christopher (Lewisham West)


Brown, Ronald W. (Hackney S)
Hannam, John
Race, Reg


Buchan, Norman
Hardy, Peter
Rees, Rt Hon Merlyn (Leeds South)


Buck, Antony
Harrison, Rt Hon Walter
Rhys Williams, Sir Brandon


Callaghan, Jim (Middleton & P)
Haynes, Frank
Roberts, Gwilym (Cannock)


Campbell-Savours, Dale
Healey, Rt Hon Denis
Robinson, Geoffrey (Coventry NW)


Cartwright John
Hicks, Robert
Rodgers, Rt Hon William


Churchill, W. S.
Hogg, Norman (E Dunbartonshire)
Rooker, J. W.


Clark, Or David (South Shields)
Holland, Stuart (L'beth, Vauxhall)
Ross, Ernest (Dundee West)


Cocks, Rt Hon Michael (Bristol S)
Home Robertson, John
Sandelson, Neville


Cohen, Stanley
Homewood, William
Scott, Nicholas


Concannon, Rt Hon J. D.
Hooley, Frank
Sever, John


Conlan, Bernard
Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen North)
Shearman, Barry


Cook, Robin F.
Hughes, Roy (Newport)
Sheldon, Rt Hon Robert (A'ton-u-L)


Cowans, Harry
John, Brynmor
Silkin, Rt Hon John (Deptford)


Cralgen, J. M. (Glasgow, Maryhill)
Johnson, James (Hull West)
Skinner, Dennis


Crowther, J. S.
Johnston, Russell (Inverness)
Smith, Dudley (War. and Leam'ton)


Cryer, Bob
Jones, Barry (East Flint)
Smith, Rt Hon J. (North Lanarkshire)


Cunningham, George (Islington S)
Kaufman, Rt Hon Gerald
Soley, Clive


Cunningham, Dr John (Whitenaven)
Kinnock, Nell
Spearing, Nigel


Dalyell, Tam
Knox, David
Steel, Rt Hon David


Davidson, Arthur
Lamble, David
Steen, Anthony


Davies, Ifor (Gower)
Lamond, James
Stevens, Martin


Davis, Clinton (Hackney Central)
Leadbitter, Ted
Stewart, John (East Renfrewshire)


Davis, Terry (B'rm'ham, Stechford)
Leighton, Ronald
Stoddart, David


Deaklns, Eric
Lewis, Arthur (Newham North West)
Stott, Roger


Dean, Paul (North Somerset)
Litherland, Robert
Strang, Gavin


Dempsey, James
Lofthouse, Geoffrey
Straw, Jack


Dewar, Donald
Lyon, Alexander (York)
Tapsell, Peter


Dixon, Donald
McCartney, Hugh
Thomas, Mike (Newcastle East)


Dobson, Frank
McElhone, Frank
Tinn, James


Dormand, Jack
McKay, Allen (Penistone)
Trippier, David


Dorrell, Stephen
McKelvey, William
Varley, Rt Hon Eric G.


Douglas, Dick
MacKenzie, Rt Hon Gregor
Wainwright, Edwin (Dearne Valley)


Douglas-Mann, Bruce
Maclennan, Robert
Wainwright, Richard (Colne Valley)


Dubs, Alfred
McNally, Thomas
Waldegrave, Hon William


Duffy, A. E. P.
McWilllam, John
Walker, Rt Hon Harold (Doncaster)


Dunn, James A. (Liverpool, Kirkdale)
Marshall, Jim (Leicester South)
Watkins, David


Dunwoody, Mrs Gwyneth
Martin, Michael (Gl'gow, Springb'rn)
Wellbeloved, James


Durant, Tony
Mellish, Rt Hon Robert
Wells, Bowen (Hert'rd & Stev'nage)


Dykes, Hugh
Millan, Rt Hon Bruce
Welsh, Michael


Eastham, Ken
Miller, Dr M. S. (East Kilbride)
Wheeler, John


Eggar, Timothy
Miscampbell, Norman
White, Frank R. (Bury & Radcliffe)


English, Michael
Mitchell, Austin (Grimsby)
Williams, Delwyn (Montgomery)


Evans, John (Newton)
Morgan, Geraint
Wilson, Gordon (Dundee East)


Faulds, Andrew
Morris, Rt Hon Alfred (Wythenshawe)
Winnick, David

Wlnterton, Nicholas
Wrigglesworth, Ian
TELLERS FOR THE AYES


Wollson, Mark
Wright, Sheila
Mr. Eric Ogden and


Woodall, Alec
Young, David (Bolton East)
Mr. Kevin MacNamara


Woolmer, Kenneth

NOES


Alison, Michael
Hamilton, Michael (Salisbury)
Oppenheim, Rt Hon Mrs Sally


Ancram, Michael
Hampson, Dr Keith
Osborn, John


Atkinson, David (B'mouth, East)
Haselhurst, Alan
Parkinson, Cecil


Baker, Nicholas (North Dorset)
Havers, Rt Hon Sir Michael
Parris, Matthew


Banks, Robert
Hayhoe, Barney
Patten, Christopher (Bath)


Beaumont-Dark, Anthony
Henderson, Barry
Pattie, Geoffrey


Bendall, Vivian
Heseltine, Rt Hon Michael
Pawsey, James


Benyon, W. (Buckingham)
Hogg, Hon Douglas (Grantham)
Percival, Sir Ian


Berry, Hon Anthony
Howe, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey
Powell, Rt Hon J. Enoch (S Down)


Biffen, Rt Hon John
Howell, Rt Hon David (Guildford)
Prior, Rt Hon James


Blackburn, John
Hunt, David (Wirral)
Proctor, K. Harvey


Blaker, Peter
Jenkin, Rt Hon Patrick
Pym, Rt Hon Francis


Body, Richard
Jessel, Toby
Ralson, Timothy


Boscawen, Hon Robert
Jopling, Rt Hon Michael
Rathbone, Tim


Boyson, Dr. Rhodes
Joseph, Rt Hon Sir Keith
Rees, Peter (Dover and Deal)


Bright, Graham
Kellett-Bowman, Mrs Elaine
Rees-Davies, W. R.


Brinton, Tim
Kershaw, Anthony
Rhodes James, Robert


Brittan, Leon
King, Rt Hon Tom
Ridley, Hon Nicholas


Brooke, Hon Peter
Kitson, Sir Timothy
Rifkind, Malcoim


Brown, Michael (Brigg & Sc'thorpe)
Lamont, Norman
Roberts, Michael (Cardiff NW)


Browne, John (Winchester)
Latham, Michael
Roberts, Wyn (Conway)


Bryan, Sir Paul
Lawrence, Ivan
Robinson, Peter (Belfast East)


Budgen, Nick
Lawson, Nigel
Rossi, Hugh


Butcher, John
Le Marchant, Spencer
Sainsbury, Hon Timothy


Butler, Hon Adam
Lester, Jim (Beeston)
St. John-Stevas, Rt Hon Norman


Cadbury, Jocelyn
Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)
Shaw, Giles (Pudsey)


Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)
Luce, Richard
Shaw, Michael (Scarborough)


Carlisle, Rt Hon Mark (Runcorn)
Lyell, Nicholas
Shepherd, Colin (Hereford)


Chalker, Mrs. Lynda
Macfarlane, Nell
Silvester, Fred


Channon, Paul
MacKay, John (Argyll)
Sims, Roger


Chapman, Sydney
Macmillan, Rt Hon M. (Farnham)
Speed, Keith


Clark, Sir William (Croydon South)
Madel, David
Speller, Tony


Clarke, Kenneth (Rushclifle)
Major, John
Spicer, Jim (West Dorset)


Clegg, Sir Walter
Marshall, Michael (Arundel)
Stanley, John


Cope, John
Marten, Neil (Banbury)
Stewart, Ian (Hitchin)


Corrie, John
Mather, Carol
Stradling Thomas, J.


Crouch, David
Maude, Rt Hon Angus
Tebbit, Norman


Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James
Mawhinney, Dr Brian
Thatcher, Rt Hon Mrs Margaret


Eden, Rt Hon Sir John
Maxwell-Hyslop, Robin
Thompson, Donald


Emery, Peter
Mayhew, Patrick
Thome, Neil (Ilford South)


Eyre, Reginald
Meyer, Sir Anthony
Townend, John (Bridlington)


Fairbairn, Nicholas
Miller, Hal (Bromsgrove & Redditch)
Viggers, Peter


Fairgrieve, Russell
Mills, Peter (West Devon)
Weddington, David


Fenner, Mrs Peggy
Mitchell, David (Basingstoke)
Walker, Bill (Perth & E Perthshire)


Finsberg, Geoffrey
Moate, Roger
Wall, Patrick


Fietcher, Alexander (Edinburgh N)
Molyneaux, James
Waller, Gary


Forman, Nigel
Monro, Hector
Warren, Kenneth


Fowler, Rt Hon Norman
Moore, John
Wells, John (Maidstone)


Fox, Marcus
Morris, Michael (Northampton, Sth)
Whitelaw, Rt Hon William


Fraser, Rt Hon H. (Stafford & St)
Morrison, Hon Peter (City ot Chester)
Whitney, Raymond


Fraser, Peter (South Angus)
Mudd, David
Wickenden, Keith


Garel-Jones, Tristan
Murphy, Christopher
Wilkinson, John


Gilmour, Rt Hon Sir Ian
Nelson, Anthony
Young, Sir George (Acton)


Goodlad, Alastair
Neubert, Michael
Gow, Ian


Newton, Tony
TELLERS FOR THE NOES:
Gray, Hamlsh


Normanton, Tom
Mr. John MacGregor and
Grist, Ian


Nott, Rt Hon John
Mr. John Wakeman.
Gummer, John Selwyn


MINISTERIAL AND OTHER SALARIES AND PENSIONS


Division No. 419]
AYES
[1.20 am


Alison, Michael
Boyson, Dr. Rhodes
Clark, Sir William (Croydon South)


Ancram, Michael
Bright, Graham
Clarke, Kenneth (Rushclifle)


Atkinson, David (B'mouth, East)
Brinton, Tim
Clegg, Sir Walter


Baker, Kenneth (St. Marylebone)
Brittan, Leon
Cocks, Rt Hon Michael (Bristol S)


Baker, Nicholas (North Dorset)
Brooke, Hon Peter
Cope, John


Banks, Robert
Brotherton, Michael
Corrie, John


Beith, A. J.
Brown, Michael (Brlgg & Sc'thorpe)
Dormand, Jack


Bendall, Vivian
Browne, John (Wincheser)
Dorrell, Stephen


Berry, Hon Anthony
Buck, Antony
Douglas-Mann, Bruce


Best, Keith
Burden, Sir Frederick
du Cann, Rt Hon Edward


Biffen, Rt Hon John
Butcher, John
Durant, Tony


Biggs-Davison, John
Butler, Hon Adam
Dykes, Hugh


Blackburn, John
Carlisle, R Hon Mark (Runcorn)
Eden, Rt Hon Sir John


Blaker, Peter
Chalker, Mrs. Lynda
Eggar, Timothy


Body, Richard
Channon, Rt Hon Paul
Emery, Peter


Boscawen, Hon Robert
Chapman, Sydney
English, Michael


Bottomley, Peter (Woolwich West)
Churchill. W. S.
Eyre, Reginald

Fairbairn, Nicholas
MacKay, John (Argyll)
Ridley, Hon Nicholas


Fairgrieve, Russell
Macmillan, Rt Hon M. (Farnham)
Rifkind, Malcolm


Fenner, Mrs Peggy
Madel, David
Rippon, Rt Hon Geoffrey


Finsberg, Geoffrey
Marshall, Michael (Arundel)
Roberts, Michael (Cardiff NW)


Fletcher, Alexander (Edinburgh N)
Marten, Neil (Banbury)
Roberts, Wyn (Conway)


Forman, Nigel
Mather, Carol
Robinson, Peter (Belfast East)


Fowler, Rt Hon Norman
Maude, Rt Hon Angus
Rossi, Hugh


Fox, Marcus
Mawhinney, Dr Brian
Sainsbury, Hon Timothy


Fraser, Rt Hon Sir Hugh
Mayhew, Patrick
St. John-Stevas, Rt Hon Norman


Garel-Jones, Tristan
Miller, Hal (Bromsgrove & Redditch)
Shaw, Giles (Pudsey)


Gilmour, Rt Hon Sir Ian
Miscampbell, Norman
Shepherd, Colin (Hereford)


Goodlad, Alastair
Mitchell, David (Basingstoke)
Shersby, Michael


Gow, Ian
Monro, Hector
Silvester, Fred


Gray, Hamish
Moore, John
Sims, Roger


Grist, Ian
Morgan, Geraint
Speed, Keith


Gummer, John Selwyn
Morris, Michael (Northampton, Sth)
Stanley, John


Hamilton, Michael (Salisbury)
Morrison, Hon Peter (City of Chester)
Steel, Rt Hon David


Hampson, Dr Keith
Mudd, David
Stevens, Martin


Harrison, Rt Hon Walter
Murphy, Christopher
Stewart, Ian (Hitchin)


Haselhurst, Alan
Neale, Garrard
Stewart, John (East Renfrewshire)


Havers, Rt Hon Sir Michael
Needham, Richard
Stradling Thomas, J.


Hayhoe, Barney
Nelson, Anthony
Tebbit, Norman


Henderson, Barry
Neubert, Michael
Thatcher, Rt Hon Mrs Margaret


Heseltine, Rt Hon Michael
Newton, Tony
Thompson, Donald


Higgins, Rt Hon Terence L.
Nott, Rt Hon John
Viggers, Peter


Hogg, Hon Douglas (Grantham)
Ogden, Eric
Wainwright, Richard (Colne Valley)


Howe, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey
Oppenheim, Rt Hon Mrs Sally
Wakeham, John


Howell, Rt Hon David (Guildford)
Osborn, John
Waldegrave, Hon William


Hunt, David (Wirral)
Page, John (Harrow, West)
Walker, Bill (Perth & E Perthshire)


Jenkin, Rt Hon Patrick
Parkinson, Cecil
Waller, Gary


Jessel, Toby
Parris, Matthew
Ward, John


Jopling, Rt Hon Michael
Patten, Christopher (Bath)
Warren, Kenneth


Joseph, Rt Hon Sir Keith
Pattie, Geoffrey
Wells, Bowen (Hert'rd & Stev'nage)


Kellett-Bowman, Mrs Elaine
Pawsey, James
Wheeler, John


Kershaw, Anthony
Penhaligon, David
Whitelaw, Rt Hon William


King, Rt Hon Tom
Percival, Sir Ian
Whitney, Raymond


Lamont, Norman
Prior, Rt Hon James
Wickenden, Keith


Lawrence, Ivan
Proctor, K. Harvey
Wilkinson, John


Lawson, Nigel
Pym, Rt Hon Francis
Williams, Delwyn (Montgomery)


Le Merchant, Spencer
Raison, Timothy
Wolfson, Mark


Lester, Jim (Beeston)
Rathbone, Tim
Young, Sir George (Acton)


Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)
Rees, Peter (Dover and Deal)



Luce, Richard
Rees-Davies, W. R.
TELLERS FOR THE AYES:


Lyell, Nicholas
Rhodes James, Robert
Mr. David Waddington and


Macfarlane, Neil
Rhys Williams, Sir Brandon
Lord James Douglas-Hamilton


MacGregor, John

NOES


Alton, David
Litherland, Robert
Soley, Clive


Atkinson, Norman (H'gey, Tott'ham)
Lofthouse, Geoffrey
Spearing, Nigel


Callaghan, Jim (Middleton & P)
Lyon, Alexander (York)
Stoddart, David


Campbell-Savours, Dale
McKay, Allen (Penistone)
Straw, Jack


Cunningham, George (Islington S)
McKelvey, William
Wainwright, Edwin (Dearne Valley)


Davis, Terry (B'rm'ham, Stechford)
McNally, Thomas
Walker, Rt Hon Harold (Doncaster)


Dobson, Frank
Mitchell, Austin (Grimsby)
Watkine, David


Douglas, Dick
Morris, Rt Hon Alfred (Wythenshawe)
Welsh, Michael


Dubs, Alfred
O'Neill, Martin
White, Frank R. (Bury & Radcliffe)


Dunn, James A. (Liverpool, Kirkdale)
Parry, Robert
Winnick, David


Eastham, Ken
Prescott, John
Woodall, Alec


Evans, John (Newton)
Price, Christopher (Lewisham West)
Young, David (Bolton East)


Hamilton, W. W. (Central Fife)
Race, Reg



Hardy, Peter
Rooker, J. W.
TELLERS FOR THE NOES:


Haynes, Frank
Ross, Ernest (Dundee Wast)
Mr. Bob cryer and


Lambie, David
Sever, John
Mr. Andrew F. Bennott.


Leighton, Ronald
Skinner, Dennis